Organizations spend thousands of dollars on employee engagement surveys to get a pulse check on how engaged their workforce is. Like any tool it is not what the data says but what organizations does with it. Engagement has two lens, one from the companies point of view and one from the employees perspective. The fact that over 65% of workers are disengaged speaks volumes to the importance of this topic.
Symptoms of disengagement for individuals may include boredom, depression, frustration, malaise, complacency. Individual employees often feel trapped without options which causes them to disengage. They lose their interest, passion and excitement for their job.
Signs of disengagement that an employer may witness is under performance, lack of initiative and inflexibility on the employees part.
Disengagement affects individual and organizational success and often occurs when the core elements of a job no longer align with the employees skills or strengths, when an organizational culture no longer aligns with an employees values and when an employee feels stuck.
So what’s the answer? It all starts with a conversation, a conversation between the employee and the manager. Managers should be able to discuss broadly the goals of the organization and how any particular role on their teams supports that but also be open to hearing what the employee needs and wants for both short term and long term success. Engaging in this kind of conversation is a good first step to increasing overall engagement.
