Are You Engaged in Your Job? Most Are Not

Here is a good post-Labor day question. I saw an interesting blog post title on Twitter, Going through the motions: Only a 1/3 of workers are engaged in their jobs. Looking within the post, it reported that a recent study by consulting firm Blessing White found only 33 percent of North American workers engaged in their jobs. It notes that low engagement levels have a proven negative impact on business performance. That would make sense. A study from HR consultancy Towers Watson backs up this assumption. They found that organizations with high employee engagement had a 19 percent increase in operating income versus a 32 percent drop for companies with low levels of engagement.

The post went on to describe how US employees feel under appreciated which might contribute to their lack of engagement. The first Globoforce Workforce Mood Tracker report found that 55 percent felt they were not rewarded according to job performance, indicating a critical disconnect between recognition and performance. Even more concerning was the finding that 66 percent of those same respondents stated their company doesn't have a recognition program that provides awards based on performance or behaviors tied to its core values. What is the matter with their senior management?

To no surprise the vast majority (85 percent) of U.S. workers surveyed like to have their efforts at work recognized. I wonder about the other 15% and would not like them on my team at work. 

I have seen many dysfunctional HR policies in my tenure as an employee with various firms. This lack of awards based on performance falls into that category. However, even with such rewards you have to be careful how they are implemented.  When performance rewards are handed out by forcing the ranking of employees, this likely only generates competition between employees and a lot of further dysfunctional behavior. I have seen this in action in more than one firm.  

Now I have multiple jobs at the same time and I am lucky to feel engaged with each one. I wonder if there is a connection? This would an interesting study. 

 

Comments

[kaushilya]

According to my personal experience......... work engagement starts from the recruitment stage. If the hiring stage fails to provide an impressive image about the organization, the firm looses candidate at that point. Later on, if the organizational culture fails to recognize the employee's output as valuable, the chances of the effectiveness of the employee's output would fade.