Engagement is a theme which is gaining more and more priority in discussions about people, wellbeing and organizational performance. I like this trend a lot because it shows that engagement is a two-way street shared by you and the organization you work for. In other words: there is no solitary engagement and it doesn’t depend solely on your efforts or the efforts of the organization you work for, unilaterally. It depends on both parties and will only happen if both are working together towards that goal.
There is nothing more gratifying in one’s daily life than to feel engaged. I have experienced this many times and I believe you have too. When you are working like this, you feel that everything flows naturally. You know that you can make a difference to the organization and work isn’t a burden. You are in love with what you do and with the company and are totally committed to giving 110%. Consequently, in such a scenario as this, everyone’s a winner!
On the other hand, when you are not engaged, your performance is exactly the opposite. The days drag by, your performance falls below your best and you feel that you work just for the money.
I’ve seen this happen very close to me a few times and it saddened me to see that this situation becomes more common as one rises within the company hierarchy. The higher the position, the more people lose the inherent motivation for their job and work just for the salary.
The sentences I’ve heard most frequently are: “I’ve still got x years to go until I retire”;“I’m just like a prostitute, I’ll work if they pay me”. Not very good, is it? Exactly. It’s bad for you and for your loved ones.
I’ve done a lot of studying about this subject and one of the papers I like the most is a study produced in England in 2015, by Chris Burton, Linda Buchan and Roland Tarleton, called “Engagement and Wellbeing: An Integrated Model”. A great deal of the material that follows is extracted from that study. If you would like to go into more detail on the subject, I suggest you read the full article. It’s fantastic.
According to Saks (2006), engagement is a state of mind and “a distinctive and unique construction which consists of cognitive, emotional and behavioural components … associated to individual work performance”.
From this definition, we can highlight two aspects:
Welcome to the team (Photo: PeopleImages / iStock)
Put very simply, engagement starts subconsciously, at a psychological level, when you are exposed to an event and realize there is a chance of reward as a consequence (more status, opportunity for growth or more control over your environment, for example). This creates an attraction followed by positive emotions and mindset. There is an inherent motivation to go ahead and consequently of behaviour consistent with commitment and engagement.
On the other hand, when the event brings about a perception of danger (loss of status, decline, or loss of control over your environment), the common reaction is one of avoidance to deal with that factor. The emotions and thoughts that ensue are negative, culminating in a lack of motivation and a natural reaction of disengagement and resistance.
That is where the problems start! You are frequently exposed to negative situations in the daily routine of the organization which ensure you are on the ball – in other words, they happen in order to stop you from trying to escape from these negative events – they are extrinsic motivators, such as financial reward, status or power.
These motivating factors, however, unlike the intrinsic ones, are not enough to motivate you over time. The accumulated result is chronic disengagement, which can lead you to developing chronic diseases too.
I once witnessed a situation that perfectly illustrates this scenario. A very dear workmate was seriously considering leaving the company that she worked for. She was very unhappy with her job, disengaged and lacking motivation.
The company was also going through a difficult period and was losing good professionals. To solve the issue, the company offered my friend a letter of intent. The letter basically stated that if she remained in her position for at least one more year, she would receive a special bonus equivalent to four months’ wages.
With money as her sole motivation, she decided to accept the proposal. Throughout that year, however, she gradually withered away, losing much of her good health and motivation to work and went into depression.
At the end of the period she got her bonus but kept thinking whether the personal price she had paid had been worth it. At the end of that period I could barely recognize her. She was a far cry from the brilliant professional achiever of previous years.
I often wonder if that was the best option for the company as well. To be honest, I don’t think so. A conversation, seeking new ways in order to recover the professional woman of old would have been much more fruitful than simply offering a pay check. True, it would have been more difficult! But the results would undoubtedly have been much better!
That is to me the most important and most wonderful lesson with respect to engagement. It’s a joint effort. Both my friend and the company failed to recognize it, and at the end of the period, she finally resigned.
Engaged team at work (Photo: Vadim_Key / iStock)
You can engage through six different factors:
While it’s true that you can benefit from engagement through any of the six factors listed, it would be ideal for the organization if you were equally engaged in all six. When that happens, your performance and your wellbeing are at their peak. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
That is the reason why the organization should be totally invested in helping you towards total engagement. This is not always possible, of course. You will often be more involved with one crowd than with the other, for example, with your closest workmates and your immediate boss, precisely to make up for the absence of engagement with the organization as a whole, say.
In cases such as these, your personal day-to-day efforts may not be in line with the organization’s strategic objectives, which in time can give rise to problems for you.
Improved results (Photo: Alphaspirit /iStock)
This is where the win-win factor – the result of the teamwork between you and the organization to increase your engagement and that of your colleagues – pays for itself many times over.
The main benefit to the company is improved performance, expressed through employee retention, increased productivity, lower absence rates, better customer/client relations, more sales, greater commitment from people and higher profits.
To you, the major benefit is more wellbeing, with more job satisfaction and motivation, a greater sense of purpose, less stress, a healthier life, fewer illnesses, better family relations and a longer life.
There is already strong evidence which shows that engagement only happens for real within a positive psychological state. This is also essential for your physical and psychological wellbeing. So much so, that according to the CIPD, a UK organization for HR improvement and personnel development, “engagement is important for performance, but is unlikely to be sustainable if it does not go hand in hand with wellbeing.” CIPD
The main implication is that engagement is a win-win game. If done correctly, your life will have a much higher wellbeing rate. Additionally, the organization will reap better results and achieve their goals more easily.
That said, remember that you, in the position of boss or subordinate, must understand that the roots of engaged or unengaged behavior are deeper than is imagined. They start at the subconscious level!
In that respect, do you remember when it was said that engagement is personal and that you should deal with each employee individually? There you go! It’s really worthwhile to do this, because people who are engaged with their work enter what is called a flow state, where everything works out and achieves fantastic results for them and for the organization.
In order to guarantee this, try to understand which events can lead you or your subordinates towards positive or negative behavior patterns. Try, as a group, to create mechanisms to prevent the negatives ones from happening, and if they do, what you can do to minimize the setbacks and avoid that they happen again.
If you work together honestly and transparently, everyone wins. I honestly think it is very much worth investing in this and focusing the energy exactly on this point. What do you have to lose, after all?
Cover photo credit – Man smiling at work (Photo: jacoblund / iStock)
