I don’t like reading things like this, I really don’t.  But today I came across a report released by Modern Survey which found that we have a lot of work to do around engaging our employees.  Modern Survey isn’t the first firm to report low engagement numbers, Gallup and Blessing White (along with others) have all found low engagement rates within our organizations.  The questions, approaches, methodology, and data that all of these firms get is different but the trend and overall findings remains the same.  I don’t think we realize how crucial employee engagement within our organizations really is.

Modern Survey measures engagement by asking employees five questions (Gallup uses twelve) which look at the following:

  1. Do employees take pride in their company?
  2. What is an employee’s intent to stay with their company?
  3. Is an employee inspired to put in extra effort to help their company succeed?
  4. Would an employee recommend their company to others?
  5. Does an employee see a promising future for themselves at their company?

Again, notice that Modern Survey doesn’t focus on activity metrics to define engagement.  They aren’t looking at comments on blogs, discussions, ideas submitted, or anything else of that nature.  They are focusing on the things that matter.

Eventually leaders at organizations are going to have to wake up and realize that they have a serious problem to deal with.  At the end of the day employees are the ones driving organizations to move forward and if you don’t have engaged and passionate employees at your company then you’re going to be moving at a snail’s pace and sometimes even backwards.  With the emergence of new collaboration tools and strategies today there is really no reason for why organizations can’t focus on building a more collaborative and engaged workplace.  I’ve always said that collaborative organizations can make the world a better place and I still believe that to be the case.

Until leaders of organizations realize how important collaboration and employee engagement are; we’re going to see these engagement numbers keep shrinking.  Now, post-recession, is a great opportunity for business leaders to transform and evolve their organizations and I’m hoping they do just that.

Comments