Enough Already

Gartner recently released research that indicates roughly a third of employees are engaged, enthusiastic, and energized in their workplaces. This is not a surprise given that U.S. Employee disengagement has for the most part been stuck on average at 69% since 2003.

Since Good to Great by Jim Collins was published in 2001, high employee engagement has been viewed as the end-all-be-all metric of organizational health and an entire industry has grown out of this endless quest for higher employee engagement. Indeed, research has shown that companies with the highest engagement scores (top 25%) averaged 18% higher productivity than those with the lowest engagement scores (bottom 25%), allowing them to increase their profitability by 21% (Gallup, 2020). But beyond the fact the engagement needle has not moved in the aggregate in 20 years, there are two other problems with the relentless focus on higher employee engagement:

• Science does not back what is widely accepted in HR circles: this false pretense that “we know that engaged employees lead to higher performing, more resilient organizations”

• The linkage between engagement and motivation

Earlier this year SHRM published an article entitled 5 Key HR Metrics to Track which stated these were the five metrics “every HR professional should track”:

1. Employee Turnover Rate

2. Time-to-Hire

3. Benefits Participation Rate

4. Diversity

5. Employee Satisfaction / eNPS

All of these are legitimate and important measures to track with the fifth arguably being a measure of employee engagement. Many in my field hold on tightly to the belief that engagement and turnover, or more specifically regrettable attrition, are the only metrics to determine if a high-performance culture is being fostered. This is not to say that measuring engagement and attrition should not occur, but I believe there’s a solid argument that there are additional or better indicators that a high-performance culture is present within an organization.

This blog post on Science for Work provides a good overview of the science on whether or not better engagement means better performance. The author of the post offers these two points based on their findings:

• Engagement surveys very often measure job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but these two variables are only weakly linked to employees’ performance

• Job satisfaction or organizational commitment are key for other important outcomes, such as voluntary turnover, employee burnout, and health but are not directly tied to employee performance

The linkage between engagement and motivation is not straightforward. When employees aren’t motivated, they’re often disengaged. On the flip side, without high engagement levels, employees also lack the drive to perform at their best. This dichotomy draws into question where the primary focus should be first – motivating the employee or ensuring there are high engagement levels.

...question (is) where the primary focus should be first – motivating the employee or ensuring there are high engagement levels

Assuming a general acceptance of the above and also knowing that a happy employee does not automatically equate to a more productive employee, the recent shift away from the goal of “make X company the best place to work” to “foster a high-performance culture” makes perfect business sense. But if it is not all about reducing turnover and increasing employee engagement, then what is it?

My belief is that a high-performance culture starts with a highly engaged manager who has the right tools in their toolbox to motivate their teams to go above and beyond. In turn, if managers are highly engaged their teams will be too (i.e. higher employee engagement) and turnover will be low. In other words, forget about improving employee engagement and laser focus on manager effectiveness.

forget about improving employee engagement and laser focus on manager effectiveness

The lack of attention to manager effectiveness has recently surfaced. An example in point is the just released BetterUp briefing that Laszlo Bock contributed to. The briefing puts forth many logical points:

Across industries, studies show manager effectiveness has a huge impact on team performance, affecting engagement, creativity, productivity, and retention. Strong managers boost team performance and retention, and poor managers hamper it.

Also pointed out in the briefing is this alarming finding by The Chartered Management Institute:

Employees who described their manager as ineffective feel seriously less satisfied in their job (27% vs. 74%), valued (15% vs. 72%), and motivated (34% vs. 77%) than those who described their managers as effective. 

According to many, each year American companies spend more than $100 billion on employee engagement with mediocre results at best. We have long known that employees don’t leave companies but rather leave their managers, likely because they are ineffective at motivating them to do their best work on a consistent basis. Laslo Block estimates that ineffective (bad) managers cost U.S. companies at least $960 billion per year. Yet, knowing all this we continue to focus on programs and initiatives that have not moved the engagement needle in 20-plus years.

ineffective (bad) managers cost U.S. companies at least $960 billion per year

As an HR professional, I have always felt that we are in the customer service business and that our primary customer is the manager. That said, for too long we’ve been distracted by something that is arguably unachievable unless managers effectively motivate their employees. It is not first and foremost about employee engagement. A high-performance culture is about effective managers and motivated employees – period. 

Now, can we please get to work and allocate time and dollars to what really matters?