Thoughts on Employee Engagement

The ideas and statistics on employee engagement listed below are by no means all inclusive. They are meant to provoke thought on the subject. As you read on consider this... 

How engaged are yours?

 

Engaging employees is not a new concept. In the 1940s United Steelworkers researcher, Joe Scanlon, developed a program for empowering and energizing workers. It has become known as the Scanlon Plan.  A fundamental principle still taught in the fields of HR and OD.
There are four principles to the Scanlon Plan:

1. Identity. Everyone in the company must understand the business, its goals, and the need for profitability.
2. Participation. Everyone in the company must have the opportunity to influence decisions.
3. Competence. Each person must continually improve his or her abilities.
4. Equity. Returns should be shared with employees, investors, and customers.Each must get a fair return.

A study found that negative employees can scare off
every customer they speak with - for good.

John Fleming and Jim Asplund conducted more than 10 million interviews during their research that led them to four core principles of employee engagement:

• Manage by outcomes not behaviors.Great organizations and managers view excellence within a role as achieving the right outcomes, not just confirming and executing the steps of the job the right way.

• Liberate don't legislate. The most dramatic increase in productivity occur when companies allow workgroups to choose their own initiatives and focus on them.
• Engagement is for everyone. Almost every employee can become more engaged.
• All politics is local. Like customer engagement, companies can't dictate employee engagement from on high; they must manage engagement locally. (Asplund & Fleming, 2007)

Tom Rath and Donald Clifton, PhD estimate that there are more than 22 million workers - in the United States alone - who are extremely negative or "actively disengaged.(Clifton PhD & Rath, 2004)

In Creating a Culture of Competence, Michael Zwell focuses on the culture as a source of employee engagement. He states that a successful culture can foster employee development and encourages employees to maximally impact the organization.(Zwell, 2000)

If you want to know what's really going on in most companies,
you talk to the guy who sweeps the floors. Nine times out of ten,
he knows more than the president.
- Kenneth Hendricks, CEO, ABC Supply Company

 

The only way to generate enduring profits is to begin by building the kind of work environment that attracts, focuses, and keeps talented employees.

 

Data from 2,500 business units and opinions from over 105,000 employees provided the following observations: employees who responded more positively to Gallup's Q12 also worked in business units with higher levels of productivity, profit, retention, and customer satisfaction. (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999) 

 

Written by Jennifer Mounce, President, Coach Effect. Coach Effect is a coaching, consulting and development firm focused on engaging employees through leadership and organizational effectiveness. For more information, please contact us.