A colleague forwarded an interesting post to me yesterday titled “The Trojan Horse of Employee Engagement.” The title instantly piqued my interest – maybe it was the image of 30 I/O Psychologists stashed away in a giant wooden horse. The author, David S. Cohen, Ed.D., raised some very interesting questions throughout the article and laid out 7 specific ones.
This “geek” is glad you asked. These types of questions come up all the time – and they are good ones. At Questar, we are always up for a game of devil’s advocate, so here is my reaction to your 7 questions. First a bit about engagement. Sure, productivity is becoming increasingly important. But it’s not just about getting employees to work harder. It’s about retaining the best talent, aligning behind values, and helping employees grow with changing needs of the company. All things I/O Psychologists strive to help organizations do better. It’s about the antecedents, the experience, and the outcomes. I think that is why it has had such great success in practice. People get it – even if it’s not a neat and tidy construct.
1. If you are not engaged, i.e. not excited about the work you do, can engagement training get you more involved? Conversely, if you are excited about your work, is engagement training a waste of time?
“Engagement training” doesn’t work at an individual level. You can’t teach someone to be excited about their work. Knowing what levers to pull to boost engagement (say having the ability to do what you do best), though, can help organizations.
2. What happens if the company’s and the consulting firm’s definitions of employee engagement do not align, but you go ahead with the consulting firm’s survey anyway?
While the desired outcomes are fairly universal, the drivers of engagement may differ from one company to the next. Surveys should reflect the values and culture of the organization.
3. Is it possible to feel engaged by your work and committed to your organization in spite of a negative environment, a stressful job, or a boss you don’t like?
Sure. Some of it has to do with personality traits. We can’t change those, so let’s focus on what we can affect to get the biggest bang for our buck. At Questar, we help employers build an environments that are conducive to engagement – including factors like mitigating stress and developing supervisory skills.
4. If you happen to feel engaged on the day of the survey, what does it mean if you don’t feel engaged a month or even an hour later?
Let’s talk level of analysis here. We are measuring at the organizational level. Yes, any one person might feel a little differently about their job a month from now. With surveys, we are looking at an overall picture, so these fluctuations become less important.
5. Is engagement a continuous process, in which employees who receive training ultimately reach some threshold of engagement, or is it a fluid process dependent on changing factors? Is it possible to feel engaged all the time? Should that be the goal?
See the response to the first question.
6. Can the energy surge generated by engagement lead to burnout?
Not in my book. In fact, in a sense, it is the antipode. If we look at it from a JD-R (job demands-resources) model, it would be too much demand on an employee with out the resources that is causing stress and burnout. Engagement is about providing those resources.
7. How does engagement relate to the individual employee’s sense of what’s right or wrong about the organization?
Part of fostering engagement is about having values and a mission that employees can get behind. Our research shows feelings about the organization’s image does impact employee engagement.
How would you have responded?
Michael Durando | Associate Consultant
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