We Need to Rethink Employee Engagement

As I settled into my seat for my flight back to London on Sunday evening, I opened the BA Business Life magazine to find an article by Henrietta Thompson entitled ‘A focus on employee engagement is one of the biggest trends for decades’.

That’s an understatement.

However, what the article doesn’t say is that Employee Engagement is a fundamentally flawed concept and organisations that expend energy on it are wasting their time and valuable resources.

Let me explain why that is.

Firstly, there is actually no commonly accepted definition of employee engagement. MacLeod and Clarke’s review for the UK Government[1] recorded more than 50 different definitions and Professor David Guest of Kings College London says these definitions are highly subjective and lack any real basis for measurement or action[2]. The Corporate Executive Board pulls no punches when it says: ‘The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among practitioners’ and ‘the term is used at different times to refer to psychological states, traits and behaviours as well as their antecedents and outcomes’[3]. We’re all merrily running around using a term with absolutely no confidence that anyone we speak to has the same understanding of. How dangerous is that from a misunderstanding perspective!

Secondly, and linked to the definition issue above, employee engagement gets muddled and muddied with other constructs such as flow, self-determination theory, motivation, social exchange theory, psychological contract, job satisfaction, job demand resources model, happiness etc., etc., etc.. Henrietta Thompson’s article in the BA magazine serves as an example of this muddling.

And then the dagger to the heart. While there are numerous organisations who will, and do, argue vociferously that engaged employees lead to better business outcomes (mainly because these organisations have a vested interest in selling you their expensive consulting solutions), the evidence just isn’t there when you subject it to proper scrutiny:

what on the surface may appear a convincing case about the benefits of organisational employee engagement, largely disintegrates on closer inspection.[4]

So what is important?

We think that how an employee actually experiences the organisation they work for is what matters rather than some nebulous unmeasurable engagement concept. We believe we therefore need to turn the telescope around, look through the other end and apply a good dose of just plain common sense.

What if we start from the hypothesis that every new employee arrives at the front door of the new organisation on Day One with a full tank of hope, enthusiasm and commitment? It’s not unreasonable to assume that, having made a pretty big decision to join you and knowing that they will likely spend a third of their life at work and half of their waking hours at work, they want it to be a pleasant and fulfilling experience. Why would they be anything other than fired up and hopeful.

Then, what if how that employee feels she is being treated, what she witnesses and observes, how she feels she is growing and developing and how she feels the social connection with others in the organisation have an impact on the use of that tank of hope, enthusiasm and commitment?

If their experience is ‘good’ (and every individual will have their own view of what good is) the tank may not deplete. However, if their experience isn’t so good then the tank may start to drain. That might be a slow drip or it may be a significant leak.

There are a myriad of things organisations do or allow to take hold and percolate that cause the tank to deplete including, but not limited to:

• bureaucratic processes that have been designed for the 0.1% of miscreants rather than the 99.9% of employees who can be trusted;

• inefficient, time-consuming, ineffective processes that nobody wants to address;

• treating employees like children rather than adults;

• over bearing managers who want to control, dictate or direct rather than coach and remove barriers;

• values and mission statements that adorn the walls, for which the organisation paid a branding consultancy a fortune but which are not reflective of the way things really operate;

• policies that prohibit, stifle and police rather than encourage and enable;

• leaders who don’t role model and set an example;

• inter team, department and company rivalry for power, resources and kudos rather than collaborative teamworking across boundaries;

• more time spent on internal competition than on competing with competitors and new entrants;

• reward mechanisms that fail procedural justice tests;

• misuse of power (this has many forms including personal use of company resources, nepotism, cronyism etc.);

• indecisiveness;

• poor performers whose underperformance goes unaddressed;

• hypocrisy;

• poor communication that stifles questioning, discussion, debate and dissent;

• inadequate investment in the development in employee personal growth;

• gossip and politicking;

• unfairness and injustices;

• ingratitude;

• weak leaders who are aloof and disinterested or autocratic;

• ostentation and flagrant displays of the affectations of conspicuous consumption;

• inequality in the employee to organisation relationship where it feels like the organisation takes and I, the employee give, give, give.

What is most significant is that it is what the employee feels, perceives and experiences. Their feelings and perceptions are their realities and their versions of the truth. We know that the parts of the human brain that deal in feelings regularly override the rational and logical parts and that once those feelings have been established, they are tricky to budge because of our brains’ inherent biases.

Sooner or later the content of the tank gets to the point where the individual does one of two things:

1. She quits with the associated cost to the organisation of recruiting a replacement, loss of knowledge, operational disruption and bad PR (think Glassdoor). By the way, if you’re one of the few organisations who do exit interviews, don’t expect to hear the truth of anything valuable; they will likely tell you they have a great opportunity elsewhere (which translates as ‘I hope they will treat me better’); or

2. She decides there is nothing she can do to change things so switches off, accepts the status quo and takes the pay with little or no enthusiasm for the organisation and its goals and ambitions. They will likely become more cynical and the organisation will likely interpret this as ‘change resistance’.

The good news is that there is a relatively simple and straight forward approach to improving the employee experience.

The first thing to do is to lift your heads from the day-to-day minutia to get an accurate picture of what’s really happening in your organisation (or function or team etc.) that is impacting on how your people feel about you. This means opening your eyes and seeing things that are frequently hidden in plain sight. It means really listening to what people tell you and asking insightful, non-judgemental questions. We use a ‘6 lens diagnostic’ and some simple, but highly effective, survey tools as part of an ethnographic research approach to ‘get under the covers’ in order to see the real reality.

It is highly likely you will need to assess your leaders’ behavioural traits. Most leaders have arrived in their roles because of their technical knowledge and their IQ but few have ever properly understood how their behaviours impact others around them. Their positive task mastery and teamworking traits are frequently derailed by often more powerful domineering and deference traits. But don’t rely on self-assessment; it is notoriously inaccurate. The assessments need the input of others.

Then start talking within the organisation about what you’ve learned. Use different mediums and approaches (not just an e-mail circular!). Be innovative but don’t make yourselves look foolish by being too far out of the zone of expectations (at this stage).

Don’t immediately jump to action lists and don't commission projects, initiatives or a crass-sounding transformation programme. Top down diktats may be part of your problem so tread carefully. And don’t jump to the conclusion that you have to emulate other organisations by putting in a couple of fussball tables etc.. Benchmarking, best practice and other ‘obvious truths’ only tell you what (may have) worked somewhere else. No two organisations are ever the same even if you’re in the same sector and produce identical goods and services; your heritage and context will make you unique.

Instead, seek the involvement of people around the organisation to work on some key areas. Do this by establishing an environment within which to create experiments whose outcomes can be properly measured and assessed. Follow scientific techniques by having control groups whereby the impact in one area can be assessed against another. Expect some experiments to work and others not. Be open to this possibility and celebrate the inquiry rather than the outcome. Where you find experiments that work, celebrate the success, communicate not just the outcome but how the outcome was achieved. Then roll these out wider and build your business case as you go.

In everything you do, properly explore the potential implications of what you are considering. There is always a risk of unintended consequences and going a little more slowly at this stage to think about these possible consequences will allow you to go faster later.

You may also need to have a fundamental look at what it means to be a manager and assess your managers accordingly. After all, they are someone whom the employee is likely to interact with a great deal and we’ve known for many years that ‘people join organisations but leave managers’.

It is possible and perhaps even probable that 99% of those who read this piece will think I am out to lunch and/or crazy. If, however, you’re the 1% who think there may be something in it, if you share our mantra ‘if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got’ and you want to discuss some ideas further (or see our toolbox), then please get in touch.

Steve Lungley

steve.lungley@sierra-lima.co.uk

+44 (0)7766 711465

[1] MacLeod, D. and Clarke, N. (2009) Engaging for success: enhancing performance through employee engagement. London: Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

[2] Guest, D. (2014), ‘Employee engagement: a sceptical analysis’, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness, 1(2), pp. 141-156.

[3] Macey, W. and Schneider, B. (2008). ‘The Meaning of Employee Engagement’, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(1), pp 3-30.

[4] Guest, D. (2014), ‘Employee engagement: a sceptical analysis’, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness, 1(2), pp. 141-156.