How to Have Engaged Employees    

-by Richard Bayer, Ph.D.

A ny good manager wants to have employees who desire to participate constructively in the mission of the department and overall organization. On the other hand, feelings of alienation harm the organization and can create an atmosphere of negativity, low productivity, general misery and high turnover.

In a recent and interesting survey of 3 million employees, The Gallup Organization (www.gallup.com) has done research into what it calls “employee engagement.” The questionnaire contained 12 questions, and according to Gallup three groups emerged: employees who are actively engaged; not engaged; and actively disengaged.

71 percent of the Americans
who go to work every day are not engaged in their jobs!

  The research concluded that: 29% of the U.S. workforce is actively engaged, 55% is not engaged, and 16% is actively disengaged. In other words, 71% of the Americans who go to work every day aren’t engaged in their jobs!
According to Gallup, the “engaged” employees are builders who use their talents and develop productive relationships.  The employees that are “not engaged” tend toward indifference; they take a wait-and-see attitude toward their work, their employer, and their peers. They do not initiate and move the organization forward. Finally, the “actively disengaged” feel and act out estrangement from the organization. This is truly poisonous for productivity. Indeed, Gallup estimates that the cost to the economy from this group is as much as $350 billion per year in lost productivity!

So a key to organizational effectiveness is to move as many employees as possible into the “engaged” category. The following Five O’Clock Club recommendations can help in this effort:

Gallup estimates that the cost to the economy from this group is as much as $350 billion per year in lost productivity!

1.  Help employees see the connection between the health of the company and their own welfare.

2.  Help people plan for internal career management. Employees who have goals do better. Performance reviews should help set reasonable goals for the coming time period.

3.  Develop mentoring relationships between senior and junior members of the organization.

4.  Encourage employees to talk about their needs in their present position.

5.  Encourage employees to join associations; perhaps offer time and money to fulfill this objective.

6.  Provide for and encourage learning new skills:
a. Have in-house training programs.
b. Provide matching funds for outside classroom instruction.
c. Encourage (reward) the application of newly acquired knowledge and skills.

7.  Empower your employees. Allow tasks to be managed at the lowest possible and practical level.

8.  Ask employees to write proposals for ways to improve things.

9.  Allow for the free flow of information within the organization. Unnecessary secrecy only alienates those who are not “on the inside.”

10.  Expand everyone’s network within the organization. Allow access to more senior management for good cause.

11.  Treat severed employees well, offering them career counseling in their transition to a new job. This keeps morale high.

People can be educated, guided, and mentored. I believe that most people tend to be relatively flexible. Given the right structures and (corporate) culture we are more likely to perform at our peak. This way employees serve their organization well, and nationally we can begin making up some of that $350 billion in lost productivity! 

Richard Bayer, Ph.D., is an economist, ethicist and author on labor economics, and also the Chief Operating Officer of The Five O’Clock Club. He is a frequent guest on local and national media including the TODAY SHOW, CNN and others. He and the Club have also been featured in The Economist, FORTUNE and other publications. Dr. Bayer is co-chair of The Employment Roundtable, a group of industry leaders and government personnel who converge each month to discuss trends in the workforce.