I continue to be amazed at how leaders receive comfort from engagement survey benchmarks – that somehow comparing themselves to the global benchmark for best practice makes it OK to have a 60% engagement rate? This means 40% of their workforce are disengaged and left to themselves these people are likely to look for another job or far worse remain purely for the pay check until it suits them to leave. While doing this they complain and they don’t perform at the standards you require and worse still they “poison” those who are performing. Contagious negativity undermines the culture and the performance and if you consider there are 40% of the workforce doing this then as a leader you could be in trouble.
We can all appreciate engaged employees are not just committed or passionate or proud; they willingly unleash their potential and talent to truly make a difference in the execution of the strategic direction of the business. Generally increased workforce engagement results in increased productivity and higher performance for the business – directly impacting on the bottom line.
Now consider 40% of the workforce are disengaged then these engaged people could increasingly be distracted from unleashing their potential – being dragged into negative conversations that could eventually wear them down; leave them feeling irritated that they are “carrying” these people. The negativity can become contagious and start to infect people who were previously engaged and are now finding it hard to “swim against the tide of negativity”.
So if you have disengaged employees you need to take one on one time to get to the root cause of this disengagement and work out ways to re-engage each individual in your team. Recognise the relationship with them and their relationship with “the business” can never go back to where it was when they were engaged – the damage has been done and as a leader you will need to find another way to bring them back. If they cannot be brought back then they need to find another job – as Jim Collins said in his book “From Good to Great“; they need to find another bus as this bus (the business you are leading) wants people who want to be engaged and give of their best. You want the business and your team to be performing at its best. These are tough and highly transparent conversations – crucial to success and highly valued by the 60% who are engaged!
