There’s a proven connection between employee engagement and better business outcomes! It can affect sales and profitability, productivity and customer ratings, turnover and absenteeism, quality of work and safety incidents to name just a few. Creating a culture of engagement leads to happier employees and an increase in company success. So what do you look for and what leads to disengagement?
Common red flags include:
- Behavior changes – less participation in meetings, being off-camera on zoom, etc.
- Quality of work product – doing just the bare minimum
- Energy levels – does it feel like they’re forcing themselves to be there or would prefer to be anywhere else?
- Commitment – do they have a goal for the next step in their career with your company or are they just looking for you to create one for them?
Drivers of disengagement:
- The company goes in a direction they don’t understand or support — meaning communication was lacking!
- They feel that the company is acting unfairly. That could be cutting benefits, layoffs, expecting folks to “do more with less” or the work of many people for no additional compensation
- Not feeling connected to the company’s vision or not understanding how their role impacts the mission/goals
- Not seeing a career path
Personally, I achieved my career goal: Be a VP of Marketing in a major company. Then I quickly realized there was something very wrong with this picture! Until I could make the move to exit, I experienced all of these bullets in some form or fashion.
This just touches on some of the factors to consider when looking at the culture of engagement. Always happy to share more!
