William A. Kahn published his article on employee engagement in December 1990 shedding light on a widely overlooked concept. Since, employers have begun to measure and attempt to understand the level of their employees’ engagement at work and the impact it has on company profitability. However, the needle hasn’t move much overall in the last two and a half decades. Gallup has been tracking U.S. employee engagement since 2000 and data has shown one third or less of employees in the United States are engaged at work. The global average is even more alarming, only 13% of employees around the world are engaged at work.
Although there is debate on how and what to measure to accurately track employee engagement levels, I believe the root cause of disengagement largely centers on leadership deficiency. And the problem will only get worse as we continue to be plagued by talent shortages. Companies are looking inside their own organizations and promoting from within, which is generally a positive approach; however, few companies invest in leadership training and development for those they promote into positions of management.
Employees with the most subject matter expertise and/or the most tenure are often those promoted into management and leadership roles, yet they aren’t often the ones who possess the skills necessary for managing and leading others. Further, if the newly promoted report to managers who were promoted for the same reasons, which is often the case, they perpetuate the cycle of mismanagement and engagement of their subordinates continues to suffer.
Executives and managers don’t make time to develop their leadership skills, but they cannot afford to continue to misprioritize the importance of effective leadership and the impact it has on the profitability of their companies. Employee engagement is a very direct reflection of (in)effective leadership. Employees rarely leave jobs, they often leave managers.
Many leaders look for ways to boost morale that have little effect on getting to the source of their morale and engagement issues. Pot luck parties, holiday turkeys and happy hours may improve morale and be gestures of appreciation in the short term, but often are forgotten before the week is over and may be fodder for co-workers to commiserate vs. improve culture.
To impact engagement and improve morale, leaders need to look in the mirror and assess their skills as well as those of the leaders and managers they’ve promoted. The challenge with attacking the source of the problem tends to be that ineffective leaders don’t know or won’t admit their short comings. But until their leadership skills are developed, the engagement issue will continue to be a problem.
If your company is serious about solving employee engagement issues, make leadership development a priority!
