Ah, yes. Employee engagement - the well-known buzzword that has a plethora of technical definitions, depending on the think-tank you follow. I've got my own definition of employee engagement, and it doesn't involve a task force, measuring happiness or a shiny new company-wide newsletter. 

It involves the classic workplace film "Office Space" and your managers. 

Intrigued? Good! 

I did a whitepaper last week over at my company (Kinetix) called "It's Not You, It's Me: The Bootstrapper's Guide to Employee Engagement".  Here's what you get when you download:

1.  The simplest definition of employee engagement you've ever seen. Designed to make the complex simple, our definition is built to remove the glossy look you see in your management team's eyes when you say "employee engagement". They'll automatically get it (and like it!) when you lay my definition on them. 

2. The five biggest myths about employee engagement as told by an award winning expert (we're connected like that), Bob Kelleher. Our favorite? "Employee engagement is just another trend." Sure it is, just like Facebook and the Internet. Right Brontosaurus?

3. Our bootstrapper's guide on how to build employee engagement through your first-level managers. You don't need a big budget to drive engagement - it all comes down to the performance of your first line managers. We'll give you five things to focus on with your people managers to get real, lasting engagement from your workforce. 

Bonus: We've also packed this engagement paper full of Office Space references to make it readable and sharable, and we've even included Digital Bonus Clips for our auditory and visual learners. Because we care. And because everyone can relate to Peter Gibbons and TPS reports.

You'll never have a case of the Mondays or need to count flare again.  

If you want to read more, go get the whitepaper here (registration required).  Not a sales pitch, just interesting reading and a great way to help your managers/company out.  I wrote it, so if you like what you get here, you'll like the whitepaper...

If you find registration for content personally appalling, I don't even know who you are anymore.... Just kidding, just email me or hit me in the comments if you're hiding from the authorities and are naturally suspicious, and I'll send you the PDF...