On the Edge: If You're Worried About Employee Engagement, You've Got It Wrong

Incentive: News

On the Edge: If You're Worried About Employee Engagement, You've Got It Wrong
May 04, 2009

By Paul Hebert

Since about November 2008, when the economy started to really tank, there have been 20 gazillion articles, posts, Tweets, and white papers about employee engagement. It’s as if someone turned on a light switch, and 90,000 watts of pure white light were shined on employee engagement. Based on the press and the blogosphere, you’d think that we should have spent $700 billion in bailout money on engaging employees instead of the banking system.

Recent research shows that employee engagement is either waning—or increasing. A recent study by HR consulting firm BlessingWhite highlighted that although North America has one of the highest proportions of engaged employees, fewer than one in three employees (29%) are fully engaged and 19% are actually disengaged.

But then, in February 2009, there was an increase over an August 2009 Modern Survey’s Employee Engagement Index in the number of respondents who said they take pride in their company, see a promising future there, and go “above and beyond” for the company’s good. I believe that in times of duress employees will tell management anything if they think it will help them keep their jobs, so I’m not too impressed with the results of this engagement survey.

In either case, the idea that employee engagement is the panacea for the ills of our economy, or your company, is wrong. I know that goes against conventional wisdom, but they don’t call this column “On the Edge” for nothing.

Employee engagement is not the problem. It might be the solution, but the real problem isn’t the employee—it’s the manager.

We focus too much of our efforts in reward and recognition programs on the activity of the “rank and file” employee. Our programs are designed to reward the call center rep, the sales rep, the administrative assistant, the project manager—whoever occupies the last couple of levels on the organizational chart. Unfortunately, that’s a waste of money in these economic times.

What Drives Employee Engagement
The Road to Employee Engagement, written by James Oakley, www.performanceforum.org, identified eight drivers of employee satisfaction and engagement. Four targeted satisfaction and four targeted engagement. Let’s take a look at the four areas identified as impacting employee engagement.

Reduced role conflict: The organization must provide clear and consistent information to employees and must take into consideration the ramifications of that information. Who is responsible for communicating with employees? MANAGERS

Proper training: The extent to which employees, both new and existing, are provided with orientation and training that promotes their personal development as well as their contributions to the organization. Who determines training requirements and allocates time and budget? MANAGERS

Personal autonomy: Defined as the degree to which the job provides freedom and discretion to the employee with respect to scheduling and work procedures. Who determines work requirements? MANAGERS

Effective utilization of expert, referent, and exchange power by managers: The extent to which employees are influenced by their supervisors’ technical expertise, the respect that they have for their supervisors, or their supervisors’ willingness to be influenced by them (i.e., exchange power). Who controls all of those elements? MANAGERS

Not one of the elements that the Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement identified is under the control of the employee. Not one.

The most effective incentive and recognition programs target behaviors and outcomes that the individual controls. Rewarding accounting for increases in sales isn’t effective. Motivating and recognizing employees for behaviors their managers should be exhibiting isn’t effective either.

If you want to improve employee engagement, don’t focus on the employee, focus on the managers.

Here are some quick thoughts on what you could do to increase employee engagement.

• Reward managers based on the number of times they ask their employees for ideas to improve the company/process/department.

• Reward managers by realigning and changing work processes that create more self-directed teams within their department.

• Reward managers for increasing training utilization.

• Reward managers for holding frequent update meetings, sending out news e-mails, and keeping teams informed.

In other words, reward managers, not employees. Employee engagement will increase if you spend less time trying to convince them they are engaged and spend more time on motivating those that are actually responsible for engaging employees.

So worry about manager engagement, not employee engagement.

Incentive online columnist Paul Hebert is currently managing director at i2i, www.i2i-align.com, an influence consultancy. Over the past 20-plus years, Paul has worked with many Fortune 100 clients to develop non-cash reward and recognition strategies within an overall audience engagement plan. He writes a monthly online column on incentive industry trends, and he blogs about the incentive industry and how to best engage your target audience, at Incentive Intelligence

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