Did you know that companies spend $38 billion dollars each year in an effort to get their employees engaged in their day-to-day working activities?
I’m not sure which side of the tracks you grew up on, but I think $38 billion dollars is a lot of money to spend on gift cards, pizza parties, prizes, holiday banquets and other awards.
Despite this huge amount of money being spent - we also know (from Gallup) that 71 percent of America’s workers describe themselves as not-engaged in their day-to-day work.
Thirty eight billion dollars spent to reach engagement levels of 29 percent? That’s a pretty big disconnect if you ask me.
So, I was intrigued by an article I read this week penned by Daniel Goleman - Co-Director of Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. His primary thesis is that people are creatively engaged because they’re self-motivated to be that way. Money and rewards played a secondary role in their day-to-day creativity and engagement – as long as they have enough money to suit their needs.
Coleman drives home an important point that can offer assistance to organizations willing to spend money on methods to engage their employees – That an individual’s primary motivation to do his/her most creative work comes from within. In short – an employee won’t be engaged until he or she chooses to be engaged.
Coleman goes on to discuss that there are things an employer can do to help nudge creative thinkers towards engagement. Chief among his recommendations is for companies to do all they can to contribute to an overall positive mood and to “have a pleasant, energetic and affective response to the work that they're doing and to the environment in which they're doing it.”
As I spent the past five years in collaborating with organizational development professionals, I often found myself prescribing fixes to their company’s engagement issues with pre-packaged products and training that I knew wouldn’t really fix their real engagement challenges.
And this is where the $38 billion dollar question comes into crystal-clear focus. Companies don’t need off-the-shelf solutions to fix their engagement woes. Instead, they must be willing to do whatever is necessary to nudge their people in the direction of engagement.
Sadly, management’s unwillingness to take uncomfortable steps to make the real changes needed to transform their company’s culture from negative to a positive almost always comes in distant second to that same company’s willingness to throw money at a quick fix they hope might accomplish the same result.
Remember – engagement and motivation is intrinsic. It’s a choice that each employee gets to make. Yet any employee can sniff out a half-hearted attempt to motivate them from a mile away.
If we know that creativity and engagement is proven to flourish in positive environments, then efforts to engage employees must start with the organization recognizing the need for a strategic and foundational shift in values, tone and employee focus. Until this happens, change initiatives have only a minimal effect at best.
The real change I’m speaking of means that actual progress towards adopting and growing a positive culture must be made.
This might mean letting go of people who trend towards the negative – no matter their spot on the organizational chart. This might mean getting rid of programs that management loves but the employees hate.
This absolutely means choosing to embark on a long-term vision that includes educating people leaders to transform their managerial functions to reflect a tone of positivity while continuing to drive needed and necessary business results.
Creative, motivated employees are waiting to provide you with their best work. The question is, are you willing to help them on their journey?
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