Employee Engagement - Making Lasting Change

My experience supports the statistic that 70% (maybe more) of employees are disengaged. The new trend seems to be deployment of “employ engagement” programs.  A program have happily endorsed and engaged in.  Yet the numbers only improved slightly.  Why?  It’s not empirical, but I have a good idea as to why.

As good managers we sent out anonymous surveys, get employee feedback and train managers on engagement techniques.  We execute on the few good ideas we received.  We communicate more and instituted an employee recognition program.  But did we make their lives easier?

People (let’s personalize it, they are human of course) don’t change easily.  It takes something personal, substantial and lasting to create change.  Although somewhat personal, the activities listed above are superficial.  Are employees better enabled to do their job (http://davidlung.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-makes-employees-truly-enabled.html)?  Are they seeing substantial benefits?  Did we:

1.       Less stress?

2.       Less time at work?

3.       Higher pay?

4.       More job satisfaction?

5.       Better promotion potential?

If not, the engagement program will only be seen as superficial. 

The most engaged employees I have managed were those I or my peers have taken a personal interest in.  Asking them about their goals, making reasonable promises, enabling them to their job and being a personal advocate for their success are powerful.   It’s honest, sincere and life changing.  It truly leaves a lasting impression.

For those seeking company-wide change, it’s about changing the culture.  This can take many years based on formal and informal behavior.  The best formula I have seen is simple yet bold:

“Rapid Change = Start at Top + Employee Focused Strategy – Powerful Change Inhibiting Executives”

It will put new life into the employees who felt disenfranchised.  It will startle those managers who felt too comfortable to change.  It will send a clear message to everyone that “this is the way we do business”.  It will create a life changing event for everyone to make the change stick.