Sometimes it is convenient to just react to a feeling rather than to do in-depth research. Within any company there will be day-to-day occurrences that will in isolation seem like a trend. We all know the danger of taking anecdotal evidence to represent a truth when in fact it is really looking at a symptom rather than the disease. Much has been said pro and con regarding employee engagement or the lack of it. One camp seems to see disengaged workers as something that can be fixed with more dedicated leadership and training. Others see “engagement†as the buzz word du jour and totally meaningless in accomplishing meaningful progress. Both are probably right to a certain degree. Engaging the gears in the transmission of a car is necessary to create forward progress, but other forces must be used to fuel the engine and steer it away from crashing into a wall. People are not machines, but the analogy holds true. Engagement alone is not the answer.
When unicorns arrive to transport us all to utopia, all employees will be hired into entry level jobs and be moved upward through career hierarchies until they retire. Well, that hasn’t happened yet. We are still driving gas guzzlers to offices and factories, so we have to deal with employee churn. In short, they don’t stick around. The median tenure for an employee in the private sector in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is 4.2 years. The overall median is skewed a little higher to 4.6 years because of longer average tenure (7.8 years) in public sector jobs. From this data we could assume that in a best case scenario we can expect most employees to be hired for only four years before we need to replace them. A Monster.com survey on The State of Employee Loyalty shows that at any point in time 50% of the workforce is dissatisfied with their job. The Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group has given us more food for thought in a Workforce Index report that provides us with these interesting facts:
- 49% are always looking for new opportunities.
- 53% favor changing employers to advance their careers.
- 70% think that multiple employers are an asset.
- Less than one-third believe that their career will benefit from remaining with current employer.
Fueling and steering employee engagement would appear to be essential in reducing turnover costs and improving productivity, but the prevailing attitudes of people in general is an external factor that is probably not something that is always solvable internally. This is especially true following a period of tough economic times. Every situation is unique and must be analyzed with regard to both internal and external perspectives.
- Strengths (Internal) – The organization needs to assess the fundamental building blocks that are already in place for creating and maintaining a loyal employee base. Simply firing off an “engagement†campaign without the ammunition to sustain it is ignoring existing assets and will probably result in reinventing the wheel. There is probably already a positive story used in recruitment that should parallel retention activities.
- Weaknesses (Internal) – Surveying the employee base to truly identify their wants and needs is essential to fixing any problems. Evaluating management performance as it relates to the internal environment is also critical to forming any plan for spackling the chinks in the façade of the company brand. Pruning the bad wood is sometimes a tough but necessary result if a serious turn-around situation is needed. Also, evaluating the state of management training and readiness is a key point to consider.
- Threats (External) – As shown in the data, the general state of employee attitudes is already one that is sprinkled with unrest. With a prevailing mentality that changing employers has become a way of life, it is virtually impossible to shield employees from this epidemic of negative thinking. When one out of every two employees would seriously consider an overture of employment from another company, countermeasures must be planned and not an afterthought.
- Opportunities (External) – Assuming that this data is universal, the rash of employee turnovers have an effect on other companies as well. With the right plan, gaps in the employee skill base can be recruited externally by becoming an employer of choice. In this case, the culture of engaged employees with common career goals is not simply broadcasting lip service to a trend, but is also bait to lure dissatisfied workers. Monitoring the financial and business conditions of competitors in the talent market can be used to that end.
Engagement does not mean creating a self sustaining perpetual motion activity. It does require carefully assessing all the variables to make sure that it is going somewhere… hopefully not into that wall. A fully engaged employee base with shared objectives with the employer will be happy to charge toward a destination that will be mutually beneficial.
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