Employee engagement, the elusive force that motivates employees to higher levels of performance, is on the rise in the United States. According to Gallup (August 2018), actively engaged employees are at their highest levels since before 2000. And actively disengaged employees are at their lowest in that same period.
Here’s the problem: actively engaged employees are at 34% while actively disengaged employees are at 13%. That means that on your team of ten people, three are engaged, one is actively disengaged, and five are simply “not engaged.” Of course, due to rounding, you’ve got one wildcard in there who could fall into any of the three categories.
People can point fingers all day long and say things like:
- “Joe is lazy.”
- “Sue just doesn’t care.”
- “Millennials aren’t engaged.”
- “Short-timers (those approaching retirement) are just riding out the clock.”
While those may seem true, the real issue is that their leaders have failed to engage them. If you’re their leader, well …
Leader vs Manager
“Whew, that’s not me. I’m not their manager.”
In case you haven’t heard my thoughts on leader vs manager, I’ll spare you the soapbox speech (for now.) In short, if you’re a leader of any kind in an organization – whether that’s a positional leader or, often, an influential leader – your thoughts and opinions matter to other people.
So, if you’re a manager, aka a positional leader, you’re responsible for engaging your team. And if you’re an influential leader with no official position of authority, you’re also responsible.
Why Engagement is Important … Especially for Engineers
There are, of course, the oft-quoted reasons for employee engagement which also apply to engineers:
- Customer Satisfaction – When people are engaged, they go the extra mile for the customers.
- Employee Retention – When people are engaged, they are less likely to leave the company.
- Higher Productivity – From another Gallup poll (March 2016), engaged employees are 21% more productive. Which matches with the above linked 2018 Gallup article’s assertion of 21% higher profitability.
But let’s dive in on how this can be even more important for engineers.
- Overcome difficult challenges more easily – Since they’re engaged with their work, they’ll enter the zone or flow more often and push themselves simply for the thrill of overcoming the challenge.
- Fewer quality defects – Engineering projects often touch thousands, sometimes millions, of lives each year. Safety is of paramount importance for engineering projects and fewer defects means safer solutions.
- On time and on budget – Engineering projects aren’t cheap. Breaking an early engineering deadline can cause a cascading series of time overruns, leaving customers in a financial lurch.
Depending on the size of your team, keeping your engineers engaged could be a full time job. And it’s absolutely worth it. Chief Engagement Officer? Hmm … CEO is already taken but I bet you can come up with a snappy title.
How to Engage
- Use operational transparency – A recent Harvard Business review article (or you can listen to the podcast) described how letting customers see the work that goes into a project can help the customers see the value companies deliver. That same process can also connect employees back to the people whose lives are improved by the project, thereby strengthening engagement.
Share your story – When you share your story about why you’re passionate about your work, you influence others to feel similarly. Of course, if your story is something like: “We don’t want our company’s stock to become a value stock. It must remain a growth stock.” You should probably have someone else share their passion.- Hear their story – Listening to others builds trust-oriented relationships and helps you understand their perspectives. Ultimately, it shows that you care. Feeling that
they’re cared for engenders engagement. - Recognize – Everyone wants to be recognized and appreciated for the work they do. It’s not enough to give them a pat on the back during their annual reviews. According to Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ashley V. Whillans, more than 80 percent of American employees say they do not feel recognized or appreciated. “What really matters in the workplace is helping employees feel appreciated,” said Whillans.
Final Takeaway
If your engineers are not engaged, getting them there is going to be a slow and methodical process. It won’t happen overnight. But once you build a culture of engagement, all you have to do is keep feeding the machine because your team will help keep each other engaged.
Of course, by the time you get to that point, you’ll be an engagement expert.
Author: Tracy Thomason
Agile project manager by day, craft beer drinker by night, and avid reader anytime I can get 5 minutes alone with my Kindle.
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Featured photo by Marius Ciocirlan on Unsplash