Let's Engage - Catriona Walsh

We hear a lot about the efforts organisations are making to engage their employees. There’s the extra curricular stuff like sports and social events and then of course the salary levels that organisations are focusing on in an effort to make their employees happier and ultimately more effective.

A study carried out by the ADP Institute in New York has shown that on average only 16% of employees are fully engaged in their work. A scary realisation then that in some cases a large majority of people are simply showing up. They show up, they get their work done and they leave.What makes this even more scary is the amount of our time we spend at work. For most of us it’s 7 to 9 hours a day. Quite a bit of time to be disengaged with what we’re doing. It’s not then so extreme to extrapolate that we are waiting until we leave work, or even the weekend to start living.

Why is this? Why is work for so many people not considered living? Even the term work/life balance suggests that when you’re working you’re not living. Why not make the most of our work life by putting enough conscious effort in to enjoy it?

Let’s face it, there will always be a certain number of people (perhaps small) that don’t need extra effort on the part of their employer to feel engaged or even happy in their work. The act of carrying out the job in itself, is enough. For most employees however, there is an important role that their leaders have in ensuring engagement, which doesn’t have to be any more complicated than:

1. Making a conscious effort to build the trust of their teams, and
2. To ensure that those teams have clarity of expectations.

As leaders one of the most important parts of our jobs is to build the trust of our teams. Brene Brown refers to trust as “the glue that holds teams and organisations together”. If we can build up enough of this glue and ensure that those that we are responsible for are clear on what is expected of them, we’re in a great position to have a fully engaged workforce.

How do you ensure your employees are engaged in their work?