Engagement part 2

Sunday is traditionally a great day for confessions... So here's mine.... I wrote Engagement part 1 in an attempt to drag myself out of my pit of despair... it was a great exercise because it made me realise that engagement is a choice.

Having just returned form holidays to a tonne of work, end of year targets and a long time until the next holiday, I was doing a bit too much moaning... Everyone I was talking to (or moaning to) agreed politely that the structure, culture, cost saving, project list, blah blah blah were all making us feel disengaged. It took a respected peer to say "you're not real happy are you Lucy" to make me reflect that I was sounding just a bit negative... a misery guts... So I did some navel gazing new millennium-style and looked up 'Engagement' on the web.

I fully expected to see all the great reasons for having engaged employees:

• Companies with engaged employees have 52% higher performance operating income than those with low engagement scores*
• Companies with high levels of employee engagement improved 19.2% in operating income while companies with low levels of employee engagement declined 32.7%*
• Companies with both highly aligned cultures and highly aligned innovation strategies have 17% higher profit growth than companies with low degrees of alignment**
• Engaged employees are more likely to promote your organisation, your products, have less sickies and innovate.

The thing that grabbed me though, was an article about getting on with it and working with whatever culture you have. http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11108?gko=f4e8d

Lots of us complain about poisonous cultures and the resultant lack of engagement. This turns the defeatist argument on it's head.


*Towers Perrin-ISR (2006) The ISR Employee Engagement Report

**Strategy + Business:The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key, Oct 2011

Ps.. If anyone catches me moaning about work this week, you have my permission to beat me around with a hard copy of the attached.