Posts Tagged ‘Sally Helgesen’

Engagement has almost as many definitions as leadership. The one I like best was developed by Kevin Rutherford, principal of PeopleMaxHR, an HR consulting firm: The level of discretionary effort one commits on a consistent basis based on their connection to the job, their peers, their boss, and the organization. Note the modifier here: discretionary effort. This is the amount of “stored” performance to go above and beyond the minimal requirements of a position.

Employee engagement is the one factor that I believe has a causal relationship on performance. Simply put, a disengaged worker will underperform. The Corporate Executive Board did an engagement survey in late 2008 and found that engagement decreased by whopping 18% – this translates into a staggering 3-4% drop in productivity. They also found that 1 in 4 high-potentials planned on quitting their job in 2009. Now more than ever is the time to engage your employees to induce performance.

Engagement effect on Turnover

Kelly Morgan did some great work in an unpublished manuscript on people who abandoned good jobs in thriving companies (Helgesen, 1995). She showed that they are the highest risk of leaving because they can become very frustrated with their manager, peers and the organization. They would rather face the uncertainty of leaving their job than stay in the position that is not autonomous and meaningful. When you are managing your talent pools, you should measure engagement, and compare this data to every high-potential. Every employee that is high-potential should be at risk for leaving the company. Tower Perrin corroborates these findings as well. Their surveys found that a highly engaged employee is less likely to consider other offers than a moderately engaged one (31% to 47%).

Talent Management is littered with strong correlations that demonstrate the benefits of an optimized, integrated system of strategic employee management. Clearly, employee engagement is one factor that should be measured and monitored.