The So-Called End of Employee Engagement (OPINION)

Being the one to coin a term is a highly sought after claim to fame. A close second is to be the first one to declare that term as dead. In the often superficial way that industries seek to define deep concepts with easy-to-invoke buzzwords, we often find ourselves skipping along the surface of the new hotness without developing a deep appreciation for the underlying principles that made it a “thing” in the first place. Such is the case in the recent article “The End of Employee Engagement?” in Forbes. In an effort to declare the thing as dead, we run the risk of trivializing great progress and new understanding.

The history of labor is a complicated one, fraught with major abuses on workers that led to regulation and unionization, though I won’t argue the merits for/against those here. That internal clashing and the subsequent partisan negotiations create massive inefficiencies. The fact is that aligned organizations accomplish more and they do it more efficiently. Any movement that helps organizations gain empathy within their ranks is a significant and positive development for both companies and people.

Perhaps the single greatest result of the rise of employee engagement is the organizational intelligence around the impact of happy, fulfilled, enabled employees. Understanding this motivates organizations to act in the best interest of their employees more often.

An organization’s ability to grasp the durable principles beneath the “engagement” buzzword — and others like it — will be the difference between the brightest minds of our day running to or running from their ranks. No amount of surveys or hallway posters will reform the underpinnings of a culture. But there are great tools out there that can and will make a difference when supported by committed leadership. Of course, because of my background as the founder of a tech shop, I am biased toward technology in this arena.

From our experience there are a few principles that those who are effecting real change have in common. And often they are aided by advanced tech.

Flattening communication: Giving employees a voice to be heard and an open forum from the lowest to the highest levels of a company is empowering (and sometimes unnerving). It’s a bold move and at times painful, but essential for building trust and breaking down walls that prevent real understanding and collaboration.

People analytics: Getting beyond the survey to predictive analytics is crucial. Cultural successes and failures in large organizations often happen at a micro level before they happen at a macro level. Having listening posts and an analytical understanding of when culture or performance is outside the standard deviation — in either direction — enables larger organizations to make better decisions on when to intervene or model behaviors of individual teams or groups.

Horizontal accountability: Employees are better aligned with each other when their accountability is focused outward and downward instead of just upward. This dynamic sense of responsibility to the whole team leads to a higher performing organization. And with the rise of the Millennial workforce, expectations on the frequency and quality of feedback are sharply rising to a level far beyond what a manager can provide on their own.

Treating employees more like customers: If talent is indeed the greatest indicator of success for organizations then we need to elevate their status in the organizational priorities to that of equal or greater value than the customer. This is bigger than we can unpack here. But what would the job description of a chief employee experience officer look like? This is a worthy pursuit that will pay dividends.

Employee engagement is anything but dead. Maybe it does need a rebrand. But we’ve barely scratched the surface of our collective potential for making work-life better. And those organizations who figure it out will bury those that don’t. 

Joe Saumweber is CEO of Bentonville-based RevUnit, an agency that builds powerful digital experiences for the employees and customers of today’s most innovative companies. He can be reached at 479-715-6400, at [email protected] or on Twitter @JoeSaum.