According to a recent Gallup survey, employee engagement in the U.S. is at an all-time high of 40%. Another 13% of the workforce is actively disengaged (spreading their negativity and unhappiness to colleagues). The remaining majority of our workforce (47%) is “not engaged”. As company leaders increase focus on the many benefits that high levels of employee engagement provide, why is such a high percentage of our workforce still not engaged? Is employee engagement broken?

Partners in Leadership believes that there are 3 main reasons that employee engagement efforts fail:

1. The workforce believes the responsibility for engagement falls to management
2. Focus on engagement scores send leadership teams into an unproductive cycle of taking actions only to increase engagement scores.
3. Engagement surveys/scores typically fail to address cultural issues that are often the cause for low employee engagement.

Eric Mosley of WorkHuman suggests that there are 3 elements that impact employee engagement:

1. The Social Recognition Platform. When you recognize all, you increase:
   1. Performance
   2. Engagement
   3. Energy

A social recognition platform allows transparency. Both management and peer-to-peer recognition is possible. Remember to train management and provide guidance on the program structure and recognition parameters. The more specific the recognition, the better.

2. Communication – in the form of conversations.

Work starts with people. A mentorship program may also be a component of a successful engagement strategy. Create a connection, then schedule regular “can’t miss” meetings.

3. Life Events

Create custom dashboards of your community of work friends and colleagues. Share snapshot moments both personal and professional; invite real-time comments.

Three solutions that can change our approach to employee engagement:

1. Focus on accountability rather than engagement. Steps to accountability are: See it, Own it, Solve it, Do it.
2. Create new experiences that push action-planning only focused on engagement scores to the wayside. Reward innovation; make the workplace a safe place to fail.
3. Create a culture of recognition; address the root cause of low engagement.

Reward and recognition programs work to keep employees engaged. When tied to company goals and initiatives, employees understand where they fit into the organization and have clear direction as to what is expected of them. Because 69% of employees say they would work harder if they were recognized for their achievements, reward and recognition programs have become key components in engagement efforts.

To discuss how you can make your employee engagement efforts more effective, contact one of our Incentive Professionals today! We’ll work with you to design performance-based reward and recognition programs that achieve results.