Who is at Fault When Employees Don’t Care?

Employee Disengagement is Costing U.S. Businesses Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Lost Productivity

It was classic Al Pacino in a scene from the major motion picture Ocean’s 13. Pacino plays a Las Vegas casino mogul, clearly based-in appearance only I’m sure-on the perpetually tanned Steve Wynn, whose name is on a number of casinos and hotels and who is to Vegas what Trump is to New York.

In the movie, Pacino’s character has an accident with an employee whose repeated on-the-job clumsiness irritates the boss. When the embarrassed employee apologized profusely for the mishap, Pacino replied, “No no, don’t blame yourself, I should have fired you two weeks ago!”

While the employee in this scenario doesn’t appear to be very engaged in his job, has perhaps even completely disengaged emotionally, Pacino’s response, however caustic, shows a hint of insight most L&D professionals and human resources managers could benefit from considering. To be sure, I’m not speaking of adopting a hair-trigger temper or firing employees on the spot for screwing up on the job. The insight I speak of is the one of looking at management’s-, L&D’s (OD)- and human resources’ role-responsibility even–in what has emerged as one of today’s most important business issues in the United States-Employee Engagement.   

The numbers, according to a Gallup study on the topic, tell an alarming story about employee engagement-rather the lack of it-that should have organizational stakeholders scramble for emergency meetings with the training professionals and human resources chiefs who are at the front lines in the battle for employees’ hearts and minds.

What price tag does Gallup affix to the issue of employee disengagement within the U.S. workforce? No less than $300 billion they say is the estimated cost in lost productivity alone. Perhaps easier numbers to wrap one’s head around, if no less disturbing, show that more than half of American employees-54 percent–are not engaged on the job and 17 percent are flat-out disengaged.  

With less than one out of three workers actively engaged, corporate alert levels should be raised to bright-red and strong counter-measures taken if the proverbial bottom-line is to remain in black ink for U.S. business.

Financial performance and employee engagement

Experts find that financial performance is strongly tied to employee engagement. A corporate culture where employee engagement is high makes for more profitable, productive, customer-focused and loyal employees who tend to stay with an organization when times are tough and the grass seems greener on the outside. 

Predictably there is no easy answer for U.S. Learning and Development (OD) professionals tasked with making sure that employees are consistently engaged and contributing to business goals. On the other hand, an organization’s trainers can’t be the only ones involved in raising employee engagement. Managers at all levels must have tools and resources at their disposal that encourage employees to put forth their best efforts in terms of energy, time and critical thinking as well as involve them emotionally in the successes of the company.

Progressive organizations that invest in their employees in terms of time and professional development will be the ones reaping rewards sooner rather than later. Methods include actively listening to workers’ concerns in organized townhall-small group style-meetings, easy feedback-to-management channels, career advancement and professional development opportunities as well as mentoring and coaching of high-potentials.

Involving employees in crafting meaningful vision and mission statements

Employees need to know what their mission is and why they should give 100 percent effort to the company besides the obvious collecting of a paycheck. I frequently work with senior executives on crafting meaningful mission and vision statements that resonate with all levels of the organization. Merely copying a competitor’s vision statement-it happens more often than you’d believe-is lazy, ineffectual and has no meaning for anyone who should be inspired by a powerful vision for the company’s future. Instead, when crafting vision and mission statements, actively seeking employee feedback ensures buy-in from the frontlines to the executive suite.

Coaching and mentoring opportunities

There is research that says that the impression an employee has from day one at an organization plays a crucial role in their level of commitment and engagement down the road. Making new hires aware of mentoring and coaching opportunities that exist from peers, managers, L&D (OD) staff or outside executive coaches to help them succeed in the organization from the beginning is an effective way forward-thinking companies affect a positive culture within their ranks. Whatever the methods, engaging employees to ultimate performance and commitment is as much an organizational attitude as it is tangible tools and resources, and with companies hemorrhaging lost productivity dollars in the hundreds of billions due to employee disengagement, a renewed focus by L&D (OD) and management alike on the emotional needs of the employee can pay dividends long into the future.

Excerpted from Harrison Monarth’s column Across the Pond in Britain’s Training Journal