Once we’ve been intentional about creating a culture of top-down leadership that provides effective communication on an ongoing basis and we’ve worked to minimize the profitability that’s killed by high voluntary turnover and ongoing recruiting, the next—but indeed no less critical—profitability killer that needs our attention is the cost of disengaged employees. To have any real shot at doing that, we need to understand how widespread this issue truly is, how it impacts individual performance, and how each of those things ultimately affects even the best members of our teams.

But first let’s make sure we’re on the same page. I’m not suggesting we do everything we can to make our employees happy, nor do I believe we can get long-term results by simply working to ensure employee satisfaction. Employee engagement is very different from either of those things. An article on Indeed.com called “How to Improve Employee Engagement” differentiated the three like this:

"Employee engagement is a measurement of how committed an employee is to their employer, how passionate they are about the work they do and how well their personal goals and values align with the mission and objectives of their employer.

An engaged employee is enthusiastic about working with customers and providing them services that generate profit and a good reputation. Not only that, but if your company has an engaged workforce, you’re more likely to retain your current staff—instead of having to frequently spend time and money hiring new employees.

It’s important not to confuse employee engagement with employee satisfaction. While the two may sound similar, they’re actually two different concepts. A satisfied employee is someone who likes their job and feels their employer meets their needs, while an engaged employee is someone who is committed to their work, dedicated to their employer and consistently performs at a high level.

An engaged employee is always satisfied, but someone can be satisfied without being engaged. For example, an employee may be happy with the compensation and job duties, but they may not be emotionally connected to their work or loyal to their employer."

With that perspective in mind, we need to understand the widespread lack of engagement. Over the decade or so that I had hands-on involvement with doing employee engagement surveys, the message most frequently shared with me was that in the best organizations in the world, close to 20 percent of their workforce was actively disengaged, and around 30 percent of their team was actively engaged. The analogy I’ve used most often to describe this has been one with ten folks in a rowboat; the three at the front row just as hard as they possibly can to reach the destination. Two in the very back are working just as hard to sink the boat. In the middle, however, we still have five folks who may or may not be holding oars, but they’re certainly not breaking a sweat in their rowing efforts!

For more on this, you're welcome to reach out to us directly at admin@dove-development.net to get a 45 Day Trial Access to our COMPLETE Leading At The Next Level program or you can check out Wes's recently released book, What's KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!) that was a #1 Best Seller on Amazon!