Continuing the discussion (1,2) on Mollie Lombardi’s report on employee engagement, I thought it might be interesting to take a step back and dig into why engagement is important from both the employee and employer point of view. The research indicates that the economy is definitely having an impact on talent plans; 43%* of respondents are focused on engagement in an effort to drive productivity and 40%* are looking to mitigating “fear, uncertainty and doubt” caused by the economic downturn.  In this environment:

Organizations are trying to understand how to motivate employees while still remaining focused on the job to be done - that job is frequently getting bigger and needs to be completed faster with fewer resources.

Clearly, the professional environment is getting more complex and job roles are getting increasingly difficult. While many organizations have asked employees to “do more with less” over the past 11 months, I have often argued that this is the wrong mantra… the focus on productivity is correct, but we need to ask employees to achieve more with fewer resources. Employees approach demands for greater productivity in two ways: 1) they drive harder in order to remain employed, or 2) they strive to achieve more and become an engine of organizational success. The semantic nuance between “do more” and “achieve more” could mean the difference between deep-seeded cynicism and collaborative problem solving.

As Neil Ryder points out in a recent comment, employee engagement is not something that you can “do” without the right building blocks in place; the culture of the business needs to be conducive to evolving a highly engaged workforce. According to Mollie, Best-in-Class organizations are focused on five key capabilities to create a sustainable culture of engagement:

1. Performance goals are agreed to by managers and employees
2. Development plans are agreed to by managers and employees
3. Managers hold regular informal feedback sessions with employees on progress toward goals
4. Senior executives are bought in and fully support engagement efforts
5. Formal or Informal employee recognition programs are in place

In Chapter 3 of the report, Mollie offers an excellent set of recommendations for organizations at all levels of maturity. She also discusses the tools and technological enablers required to support engagement efforts.

Bottom Line for CxOs: If employee engagement is important to you, you need to foster and grow a culture that is conducive to a highly engaged workforce.  A clear, well-articulated and consistent strategy (that is supported by the entire management team) and open, frequent and two-way communications throughout the organization are crucial building blocks for success.

You can download a free copy of the report here (available until the end of Sept 2009 - registration required).

(*multi-pick question, respondents were asked to pick the top-2 reasons)