What Is Engagement?

Employee engagement is often talked about these days, yet few organizations practically define, measure or apply this concept.  Consequently, job satisfaction, a major component of engagement, has decreased 23% in the US in the last 20 years and 10% in the last 2 years.*  Clearly, many companies are not getting it.

 Engagement is a relatively new way of thinking about leading people — a sort of magnetic rather than a coerced approach to getting people to want to do whatever is necessary to ensure the continuous high performance and success of the business.  As a philosophy of management, “engagement” centers on an individual’s degree of dedication to the organization and its goals with an implied reward of self-actualization or personal growth.  The assumption in the business world is that engagement level predicts the positive intensity and quality of effort the organization can expect from an individual within job confines.  In this regard, engagement’s value to the business is a predictor of future behavior and effort.

Business leaders should care about employee engagement because, when correctly measured, engagement profiles provide management with a statistical method to maximize return on human capital.  For example, our studies show that positively engaged employees have higher than average individual productivity and innovation events plus they remain with the company longer than disengaged employees.  In addition, the discretionary efforts of the fully engaged are of higher quality and of a more positive intensity than other less-engaged employees: their economic contributions to the business consistently exceed their employment costs.  From a quality of work life perspective, positively engaged employees are energetic and enthusiastic which makes them more productive in group efforts and makes them a pleasure to work with.  Our research also shows that fully engaged employees solve problems.  

The failure to positively engage people in organizations today often stems from poor definition and measurement of engagement.  Managing engagement cannot be effective without practical, reliable measurement and reliable, concrete definition.  Contrary to most published materials, calculated responses to a host of random “benchmarked” opinion questions are not reliable measures of engagement.  In fact, this false assumption lies at the heart of leaderships’ failure to engage.  Meaningful engagement measurement is derived from tried and true attitude classification psychometrics, and collected via survey responses to a validated, complete inventory of questions about employee feelings and experiences towards verified engagement “drivers”.  The fact is, few employee surveys reliably measure engagement. 

Leading the way in thought leadership and engagement measurement, Scarlett Surveys defines “employee engagement” as an individual’s degree of positive or negative emotional attachment to their organization, their job and their colleagues.  Fully engaged employees, according to our proven measurement classification formula, have a high tendency to contribute better-than-average individual productivity, innovation and applied learning, plus they remain with the company longer than less-engaged employees.  Moreover, the discretionary efforts of the fully engaged toward their employer are of higher quality, longer duration and of a more positive intensity than other less-than-fully-engaged classifications.

While the understanding and nourishment of employee engagement is paramount to an organization’s business success and competitive advantage, it is essential to measure and manage both individual engagement and group engagement.  Doing so ensures a balance between individual needs and synchronized unity of effort.  Thus, leaders have the data to fulfill a bona fide engagement survey’s business purpose, which is to increase associate economic contribution in sync with organizational goals while improving the workplace. 

Group engagement profiles are best calculated from employee responses to battery question sets encompassing 15 universal intrinsic and extrinsic engagement factors proven to measure group dedication and unity of effort.  Individual engagement is best measured by classifying each individual’s level of positive or negative emotional attachment to the organization and its goals using the same 15 bona fide engagement factors but arranging the data profiles by engagement level, rather than work group.  Both engagement profile data sets show the effect of various employer practices on levels of engagement, individually and collectively, thus making it easy to identify and address key opportunities for improvement.

In a world of fast-changing markets and hard-to-measure intellectual work, employee engagement has emerged as an often misunderstood but essential managerial function and responsibility of leadership.  It is the art of getting people to want to do whatever is necessary to ensure the continuous high performance and success of the business.  When correctly defined and measured, employee engagement is a manageable predictor of future behavior and effort that enables business leaders to boost associate economic contribution and improve business performance while enhancing quality of work life!

Ken Scarlett
President
Scarlett Surveys International
The Survey Company®

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved. May not be reprinted or used without permission.

 *Source: The Conference Board TNS annual survey of 5,000 households

Author’s Note:

Scarlett Surveys uses validated measures of both group engagement (Associate Engagement Research Index™) and individual engagement (Engagement Wheel™) thereby avoiding measurement myopia.  The AER Index™ (group engagement) is calculated from employee responses to battery question sets encompassing 15 engagement factors proven to measure group dedication and unity of effort.  The Engagement Wheel™ (individual engagement) classifies each individual's level of positive or negative emotional attachment to the organization and its goals.  Both engagement profiles show the effect of various employer practices on levels of engagement, individually and collectively, thus simplifying the complicated and making it easy to improve.