The Poor Man's Guide to Employee Engagement...

My definition of employee engagement: Discretionary effort that you don't have to threaten someone to get.  

Threatening or even asking means the resulting effort is not discretionary - funny how that works...

Lots of things go into creating an environment that draws discretionary effort.  Hiring the right people is a start.  Having managers that can have a two-way conversation is a good follow up to that.

Or, you could just tell them what to do...

Comments

[Cara]

Your definition is spot on. I define it similarly: the point where employees demonstrate a willingness to expend discretionary effort for the benefit of their company.

Additionally, in the work I do, we see eight drivers of employee engagement:

- Senior leaders who care
- Feedback and dialogue with managers
- Frequent and authentic communications
- Having a voice that matters
- Growth opportunities
- Focus on the customer and community
- Good cooperation across groups/divisions
- Quality relationships at work

One of my colleagues recently blogged about employee engagement and heightening leadership visibility through Pinterest: http://b2ecomm.com/2012/03/12/pinning-it-down-heightening-leadership-visibility-to-engage-employees/

[HRAthletics]

To get discretionary effort:

- employees have to feel their work is a reflection of them personally
- employees have to have ownership and accountability for the outcomes
- employees must go beyond just getting instructions, following directions and completing tasks
- employees have to feel that their work is accomplishing a goal, solving a problem, or making a difference for a cause that matters to them

This can come automatically by hiring the right person into the right job, and TADAH - self-motivation. Most often you need to design and structure your work environment in a way that ties employees to something bigger than just getting the job done. It has to be consistently assessed and communicated in interviews, onboarding, training, performance/talent management, compensation/rewards, etc...

It has to be ingrained in your company's culture and it has to really matter.

[Carla Anne Ernst]

Great Definition! I think that an engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, committed and enthusiastic about his or her work. It's also about the:

* Extent to which employees put discretionary effort into their work
Involvement of hearts as well as minds (emotional / rational commitment)
* Degree of involvement / enthusiasm and commitment to:
Job, Work effort, The organization
Desire to stay in the organization
Ability to work as a team, across disciplines and functions
Understanding / commitment to achieving company goals and business
context
* Level of trust in leadership and belief that decisions are made in the best
interests of the organization and its employees
* Employee understanding of their role in the business success
* Level to which employees feel valued and appreciated, and the
* High level of “hearts” and “minds” – (emotional / rational commitment)

[Carman]

The company I work for makes us pledge in e-mail, our desk top sales tool, and in person the number of sales we are going to process on a daily basis. They go on to say that if we don't reach that number, we are letting down ourselves and our company. It goes on, but I'm sure you get the idea. This pledge must also be verbally submitted at a meeting. There is no discussion about our personal, compelling reasons for reaching our quotas, only about what we NEED to do for the company. Is this productive to employee engagement? Am I missing the value in this method, which feels forceful and threatening to me? I've read much on goal setting and personal developement but not management.