A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at a life sciences event about the crippling impact of low employee engagement on their businesses. In the panel discussion that followed, I was asked... surely if somebody is so highly disengaged they're damaging the business, it's better to get rid of them rather than try to turn things around and increase their engagement?
In my talk I'd set out the three levels of employee engagement:
1. Engaged - these employees do more than expected
2. Disengaged - those who only do what's expected
3. Highly disengaged - these employees do less than expected.
I also explained how to figure out how much having disengaged employees at your own organisation is costing (drop me a DM if you want to know yours). And I'd talked about the broader impact of low employee engagement on the company: lower productivity and profitability, higher staff turnover, lower customer ratings.... the list goes on.
The panel question got me thinking... why should a company try to increase employee engagement rather than just getting rid of employees that are disengaged and aren't doing the job they're being paid to do?
For me, it's not just about how improving employee engagement can benefit a business.
It's not just about how much money the company can save by taking proactive steps to engage their people.
It's not just about the fact that a company loses 34% of every disengaged employee's salary before they've even begun.
It's not just about the fact that it can cost a business between 50% and 400% of an employee's salary to replace them, taking into consideration recruitment and on-boarding costs, time spent on interviews, orientation and learning on the job until they're fully up to speed.
It's not just about all that.
As I said at the event, I firmly believe that every single person deserves to enjoy what they do.
I have been highly engaged in jobs and I have been disengaged in jobs. This does not make me a bad employee - it makes me human. I am one of those people who loves work, I get such a kick out of it. To not enjoy what you do, to go into work or to log on dreading it, to feel deflated and demotivated and unhappy without purpose is a horrible feeling.
Surely we all should do everything we can to try and turn that around? Work takes up such a massive chunk of our lives, it should be something that we get satisfaction from - if not enjoyment.
I think everybody should be finishing their working day feeling good, not fed up, not dreading the next day when they have to do it all again. Life is too short not to enjoy what we do.
So that was my response. It's on all of us to do everything we can to ensure that people - including ourselves - enjoy work. It's down to entire organisations - not just leadership, not just HR, not just employees - but all of us collectively (including me, as an employee engagement coach 🙋🏻♀️).
To be able to help organisations and people be more engaged with their work brings me joy every day. Knowing that I'm helping people move from dreading their job to loving it is a brilliant feeling.
If you want to improve your employee engagement for the sake of your business AND for the sake of your employees' happiness and wellbeing, drop me a line.
It's time to turn Thank God it's Friday into Thank God it's Monday.
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