Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

We've seen the statistics before. Companies with engaged employees perform better. 

But we've seen these as well:

• As few as 13 percent of employees are truly engaged while at work. 
• And it gets worse, as other studies point out that only 35 percent of managers are engaged in their work.

So I did a little research with my partner, Dr. Google, and I found a gem of an article from Bain and Company: Who's responsible for employee engagement. (Bain.com)

Bain reached out to 200,000 employees across 40 companies, and here's what they found. 

• Engagement scores drop as employee tenure increases. Now, that could be explained a few ways. Are highly engaged employees more employable, thereby more likely to be recruited? Or is it that in poorly run companies, the more someone knows about its culture, the more disengaged they become? The article didn't really say, unfortunately. 
• The lower on the org chart, the lower the loyalty. 
• Where is engagement the lowest? Sales and service. Yikes!

Click to enlarge.

 

But what I liked most about the article is that it found the best practices of companies with highly engaged employees.

• Line supervisors lead the charge in engagement. This is more effective than centralized attempts to increase engagement. So, how much do you focus on helping line supervisors lead the charge in your shop?
• These line supervisors are trained in coaching and motivation. 
• Allow teams to rally around the customer/member. Companies with high engagement sought feedback from front-line employees to make the customer experience better. And there was a formal process to both solicit the feedback and to show how it was implemented.
• These companies use different engagement tactics for different employee segments. 
• Managing by the numbers isn't as effective as emphasizing dialogue. 

The report is a short 8-page read, but it gets to the heart of what we're trying to do - build a workplace where people are excited to show up and do their thing. 

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• Engagement (Musings)
• Respect and engagement (Musings)
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• What comes first? Happiness or a strong corporate culture? (Musings)