Nadia HamdanMarketing Analyst

Employee Disengagement…do you pass the test?

Employee Disengagement: Do you pass the test?

Agenda

State of the American Workplace

Root Cause of Employee Disengagement

History Lesson: Frederick Taylor

7 Habits of Highly Disengaged Employees

Solutions for Disengagement

State of the American Workplace

30%

52%

18%

Engaged

Disengaged

Actively Disengaged

Chayes, Michael. "How Can We Solve the Employee Disengagement Problem?" Fast Company. 26 June 2013. Web.

Employee Disengagement

“… imagine a crew team out on the Potomac River where three people are rowing their hearts out, five are taking in the scenery, and two are trying to sink the boat.”

Gallup’s “State of the American Workplace”

More educated, but not more engaged.

Women are more engaged than men.

Remote workers are more engaged.

Too few “brand ambassadors.”

Engagement by generation.

Employee engagement’s overall effect on bottom line.

Lipman, Victor. "Surprising, Disturbing Facts From The Mother Of All Employee Engagement Surveys." Forbes. 23 Sept. 2013. Web.

Why are we failing?

Aren’t people curious about

how you manage to

create tens of millions of

disaffected employees?

Root Cause of Disengagement

“A lot of leaders understand the essential importance of improving engagement,” says Harter, “just not enough of them. Many people see the macro engagement numbers and dismiss

them as not relating to them or their firm. But when you show an organization their own results, it tends to shock them. And that’s when

they tend to want to do something to correct it.”

Culture of Business

We maintain a belief in a division between what is personal and what is businessThe irony is that we ask people to be role players during their work day and not who they fully are as

human beings, but then we’re perplexed and

concerned when most of them feel disengaged from

their organizations.

Culture of Business

Morgan, Jacob. "This Is The Single Greatest Cause Of Employee Disengagement." Forbes. 13 Oct. 2014. Web.

It’s not all your manager’s fault…

If there’s employee disengagement, why not employer disengagement?

History Lesson

Frederick Taylorthe father of scientific management

Methods of Standardization

Improved Industrial Productivity

Dark Side to Taylor’s Methods

Taylor’s Philosophy

The mental work of planning and control was

something only a manager had the ability for, while

the worker was just responsible for executing the work plan as given to

him.

MANAGEMENT-THINKERSWORKER-DOERS

Why It Doesn’t Work

Without intending to, we may keep reinforcing a system that deprives employees of proper credit for their own capacity for self-management and independent problem-solving. Equally, we make unfair

demands on managers who have been, more than

likely, trained to play leadership roles, but

were not developed to be leaders.

7 Habits of a Highly Disengaged Employee

 Persevere + evasiveness = Persevasiveness.

Web surfing is their 1st job, bathroom breaks are their 2nd. 

An exaggerated sense of how evil their employer or manager is.

1

2

3

Scenario 1: Manager offers to take his department out to lunch, on the company.Disengaged employee thinks: "He's just trying to prevent us from taking our usual two hour lunch, that [expletive] [expletive]“

Scenario 2: Company sends out a newsletter to inform employees about the upcoming summer picnic.Disengaged employee thinks: "Why can't they just let us go home?  This is [expletive] [expletive].“

Scenario 3: Manager comes over to ask when the document will be ready.Disengaged employee thinks: "[Expletive]!" (Disengaged employees reach a point where anything a manager does is considered pestering.)

Dawson, Dudley. "The Seven Habits of Highly Disengaged Employees." Examiner.com. 4 July 2009. Web.

7 Habits of a Highly Disengaged Employee

4

5

6

7

Dawson, Dudley. "The Seven Habits of Highly Disengaged Employees." Examiner.com. 4 July 2009. Web.

They aren't happy until they convince the world they are “right.” 

They'll find any way to sneak out of work early.

 Increased interest in working from home.

A firm belief that everyone they work with is incompetent. 

Engagement as the Wonder Drug

“Organizations in the top decile of engagement outperform their

peers by 147% in earnings per share, and have

90% better growth trend than their competition.”

Getting the Basics Right

“Most people come to work well intentioned and only turn sour when their basic needs aren’t being met. You have to get the basics right if you want

great engagement.”

(1) Get people in the right job

“The single greatest mistake a manager can make is a bad hire.”

(2) Set clear expectations

“Disengagement starts with having a confusing job.”

(3) Give people what they need to do their job

Giving people greater autonomy and control over their workday has profoundly positive effects. It leads people to feel trusted, and influences them to do much more for the organization.

(4) Be extremely generous with praise and recognition

“People need recognition frequently…”

Going beyond basics...

“Some have moved as high as 70%. They didn’t start there, of course. They worked on it and got there in time.”

12-question diagnostic tool

Manager versus Leader

Ensure everyone selected into a leadership position has the talent to be an inspiring and effective manager.

35% said they’d willingly forgo a substantial pay raise in exchange for seeing their direct supervisor fired.

Qualities of a Good Leader

“Some people are better at getting results and some are better at developing. But, we’ve found both are equally important.”

Examples of Companies with Great Employee Engagement Practices

Final Thought

The most substantial solution to employee disengagement (and many other organizational challenges) would be an organization completely populated with three-dimensional human beings and not avatars and role players.

Questions

Nadia HamdanMarketing Analyst

nhamdan@hrsmart.comO: 972-783-3000

Thank you

Thank You For Attending