Engagement is Here to Stay

It holds the key role to releasing your inner Jaguar

I’m starting to see statements popping up in various trade publications and blogs on the subject of workplace engagement. Assorted pundits are tentatively musing on the staying power of engagement as if it were a fad.

“Employers need to stop whining about employee engagement. Employees will be engaged if there’s an incentive for them to be engaged.” (Post to a LinkedIn discussion group, December 28, 2009)

It’s understandable. The woods are full of notions, programs and theories that have burst onto the workplace scene only to run out of steam and wither away, such as:

• Relationship selling
• Total Quality Management
• One minute manager (leader, coach, etc.)
• Neurolinguistic programming, and 
• Servant leadership

Employee engagement has been centre stage for about five years, and some believe that this star performer is preparing to retire.

Workplace engagement, however, is not a fad. In fact, it’s been around for a lot longer than five years. It’s just been called by different names. A brief stroll down “Memory Lane” of workplace research reintroduces us to the work of Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg and Douglas McGregor, each of whom identified elements of engagement while employing different terminology.

Abraham Maslow’s Self-actualization

In the 1940s, Abraham Maslow introduced his Hierarchy of Needs. According to his work, human beings have five sets of psychological needs coexisting in a hierarchical relationship, as follows:

1. Physiological
2. Safety
3. Social (Belonging, Affiliation)
4. Esteem
5. Self-actualization

Self-actualization, the highest set of needs, refers to the group of human behaviours that are consistent with an individual’s most deeply felt values, pleasures and preferences. The behaviour is designed to maximize the person’s feelings of performing to one’s full ability, and expanding to that ability. It’s about being “in the zone”, being the best you can be.

This is very close to one of the elements of workplace engagement; namely, the interplay of our unique talents and skills emerging from the core of our being. When we are engaged, what we do at work is completely consistent with what we believe, value, yearn for, and even love. We function on all 12 cylinders—we live at full capacity.

Frederick Herzberg’s Hygiene and Motivator Factors

In the 1950s, Frederick Herzberg gave us workplace hygiene (maintenance) factors and motivator factors. These refer to workplace conditions that produce positive or negative feelings in workers. Hygiene factors include compensation, job security and company policies, while motivator factors comprise recognition, responsibility, growth, and the work itself. Herzberg stated that problems with hygiene factors result in negative feelings, while the presence of motivator factors produces positive feelings.

He could have been talking about workplace engagement, which is the product of the work itself and the environment in which it’s performed. We know that recognition is engaging, as is responsibility. Responsibility means trusting; if I feel trusted, I can engage with my work. The opposite is also true. If I feel that my work is helping me to grow as an employee and/or as a human being, that’s engaging, too.

Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

Also in the 1950s, Douglas McGregor described two sets of attitudes about employees that existed in workplaces. He called them Theory X and Theory Y so as not to betray any bias for one over the other. (It didn’t work. It was obvious that he preferred Theory Y.) Theory X attitudes view employees as averse to work, and needing to be compelled to work through coercion and the reward of pay. The individual whose words are quoted at the opening of this article is coming from a Theory X orientation. Theory Y stated that work was a natural human activity that people engage in happily and even enjoy. They will exercise self-direction in the service of objectives to which they are committed.

He, too, could have being talking about workplace engagement. When employees make an emotional commitment to achieving objectives, they can engage with their work. Engagement is, after all, a feeling.

So should employers stop whining about employee engagement? Does all this talk about feelings actually result in anything? Last year I delivered workplace engagement training to a consortium of managers led by Kawartha Participation Projects (KPP) in Peterborough, Ontario. Here’s what Linda Myers, Quality Assurance Manager at KPP, told me about its impact:

In light of your workshop, the Supervisory Team at KPP have made employee recognition a standing item at their regular team meetings… . We have seen a difference in productivity and overall customer satisfaction in the employees whom we recognize and value their talent.

Efforts to engage employees with their organization’s work make significant productivity gains. Maslow, Herzberg and McGregor were saying similar things using different words.

A fad? No. Workplace engagement has a long track record and is here to stay. It always has been, and still is, the key to releasing every employee’s inner Jaguar.

Originally published in issue 12-2 of Your Workplace magazine.