Overcoming Cynicism, Misconceptions, and Apathy about Employee Engagement

Written by: Leigh Branham and published with permission by Canadian Management Centre

Will the new decade bring new hope or just more cynicism to the business world? You may have seen this recent Dilbert cartoon, printed last month in the winter of our recessionary discontent:
Dilbert's Boss: "We need more of what the management experts call employee engagement. I don't know the details, but it has something to do with you idiots working harder for the same pay."Dilbert: "Is anything different on your end?"Dilbert's Boss: "I think I'm supposed to be happier."

The cartoon was an instant classic. Unfortunately, it captured the deep employee cynicism about the most highly misunderstood business buzzword of the decade just ended. As the cartoon suggests, many employers have earned the cynicism by invoking the term "employee engagement" to mean "doing more with less"-aburden to be borne by employees. Consider the following recent survey reports:

Seventy-two percent of companies have reduced their workforces in response to the recession, according to Towers Perrin

The number of actively disengaged workers increased from 3 percent to 24 percent in organizations that have laid off employees, Gallup researchers found Watson Wyatt's Employee Engagement Index declined 9 percent for all employees from 2008 to 2009. More importantly, among top-performing employees, engagement dropped a much steeper 23 percent.

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