Cultivating Employee Engagement

Author: Bill Watts – TPC Executive Producer – July 13, 2016

If we really believe the Gallup survey, only 30% of American employees are engaged at work, that is, psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making a positive contribution to their organizations. While it’s possible to question the accuracy of such surveys, it’s clear that employee engagement, however defined, is highly important to your company’s success

Since we began helping corporations communicate with their employees through satellite-delivered programs and later, webcasts, the technology has changed a lot, but people have not. Pay is important, but pay alone is not enough to satisfy them. In simplest terms, people have a choice to do a great job or a mediocre one. They exercise this choice based on the emotional connection with the purpose of their project/team/organization.

During our projects, we spoke with many employees of large enterprises who were located in the hinterlands of the U.S. or scattered in far-off countries and learned that they felt out of the loop, and, yes, even ignored by the folks who were running their companies. We talked to quite a few of them in places as varied as Australia, Japan, the Middle East, and…Idaho. They were thrilled to receive programs we were sending their way because they felt they were directly hearing what the company’s plans were and how they fit into those plans, or they were learning something meaningful to their jobs.

Some of the isolated employees had an actual sighting of a high-ranking executive once or twice during their stay at their firms, but often felt at a loss to understand some of the twists and turns of corporate policy. They got their information second, third or fourth-hand. Then again, you couldn’t blame the executives tasked with running a large organization for not always having the time to visit every company location to talk to the troops.

It goes without saying that communication with employees is crucial to the success of any company. It also helps if the message is not diluted as it passes through multiple levels of the org chart. Corporate leaders can often provide the inspiration that employees need to do their jobs well when they speak directly to them.

So whatever technology we used, we learned that efforts to improve the communication with employees outside headquarters or main offices usually pay off. Those employees felt better appreciated and more motivated to perform when communication was direct and frequent.

Have you been out of the loop at your company? How does your firm deal with keeping employees informed, trained and motivated? Pleas let us know on Twitter @tpcnet. Or drop me at note at bwatts@tpcnet.com.