I find it interesting when I am asked to back up my claim that employee engagement actually supports productivity and profitability. There has been plenty of evidence available on this for at least 30 years, and darned it if Gallup didn’t produce some more recently. (Thank you Gallup!) Their study parses apart the differences between union and non-unionized environments, but independent of that, the basic claim still stands.
“Gallup has studied employee engagement for more than 30 years with more than 15 million employees in more than 160 countries. Through this in-depth research, Gallup has developed and identified 12 core elements — the Q12– that predict employee and workgroup performance and link powerfully to crucial business outcomes, including productivity and profitability.” Copyright © 2008 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved
My question is, why do I still get the demand to “prove it?” Is it because it is too “soft?” I assert that the work is actually too “hard” for some, or everyone would be doing it. But before I throw around any more judgments, let’s take a minute and define what we mean by “employee engagement.” According to Katharine Esty and Mindy Gewirtz of the NorthEast Human Resources Association, it means:
- Many different levels of employees are feeling fully involved and enthusiastic about their jobs and their organizations
- The willingness and ability to contribute to company success to the extent to which employees put discretionary effort into their work, in the form of extra time, brainpower and energy,” (according to a Towers Perrin study)
The time has come for employee engagement to be taken very seriously. It is the secret source of competitive advantage that is right in front of our faces, but we seem to take for granted. Six Sigma and other optimizing, streamlining, best-practice-developing approaches all have their place, but you can’t get away from the fact that it takes people to make these all happen, successfully. (Yes, I’m familiar with HumanSigma™. I’m not limiting my discussion to improving the employee/customer interactions.)
If our Human resources are not engaged, no matter what your business, proceed at your own peril. It breaks my heart that we all do not see the preciousness of our Human resources. If we open our minds to the vast potentiality of Humans at work, treated Humanly, we can capitalize on those things that only Humans can do – innovate, initiate, go the extra mile and on and on.
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