HRReporter

THE NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

C A N A D I A N

www.hrreporter.com

DECEMBER 1, 2008

Published by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd.

The promise of engagement: Examining myths, truths

rue or false: Engagement is important to the overall performance of an organization? Easy. Its true, right? I mean, this is important stuff, isnt it? Well, the answer really depends on what you mean by engagement. If you mean employees who actually feel connected to the company, fit within a strong, distinct culture and identify with the brand image then, yes engagement is important. If, however, you mean will higher engagement scores actually relate to better performance, you may be surprised by the answer.

GUEST COMMENTARY
HENRYK KRAJEWSKI
So, whats going on here? Many popular measures of engagement tend to focus on evaluations of workplace elements (job satisfaction, leadership quality and potential predictors or outcomes of engagement) versus assessing the real degree of commitment and belief an employee has regarding the organization and its values. In other words, these traditional measures tend to capture the head, but not the heart. Assessing how one feels when at work (job affect) is superior to assessing more cognitive or logical evaluations (job satisfaction) in the prediction of job performance. Given this data, and the less than overwhelming proof the promise of engagement has been fulfilled, it may be time to examine other, more productive ways of measuring and promoting engagement in organizations.

Hard facts about engagement surveys

Many of the most popular engagement surveys dont actually measure engagement at all. Consider for example, the following items, common in many surveys: I have a best friend at work. I have the tools and materials necessary to do my job. I know what is expected of me at work. Those things dont really tap into engagement at all. Engagement relates to that sense of connectedness to values, and commitment to a companys goals and mission, that are so important to delivering on a companys promise. The three items above look more like the job satisfaction items that gained notoriety in the 1970s and 1980s not exactly lightning fast progress. Certainly, these items may be important to creating a sense of engagement on some level, but they dont directly measure engagement. Therefore, increasing scores on these types of items may look good tied to a corporate goal, but thats unlikely to lead to meaningful organizational performance.

cept of commitment is much closer to what we have classically thought of as a sense of engagement. It is certainly plausible people can be connected to organizations for a variety of reasons, beyond just feeling aligned with company values and brand images. For example, people can remain with organizations because they have very limited choices available to them. Or they may stay because they feel a form of obligation to support the needs of their friends and colleagues. And, as has been shown by Meyer and colleagues, people can hold varying levels of these aspects of commitment at any one time. In the end, its an individuals profile on these aspects of commitment that predicts whether she will be a top, average or below average performer. We may also want to examine whether measuring engagement is itself a true engagement strategy. Consider this fact: Measuring engagement does not produce engagement. We have seen how measuring engagement can actually decrease engagement scores through the degree of cynicism and survey fatigue that exists in organizations today.

Four phases of engagement

What is most important to realize is the art of engaging a workforce is accomplished in four broad phases: Proactive, meaningful dialogue with your most important employees Communicating how you have listened to and understood employee needs Embedding key values in the fabric of the organizational culture and HR subsystems Measuring the extent to which employees remain committed to the value and key value propositions they helped create. Perhaps understanding some of these simple facts will lead us to be more wary consumers of engagement tools and help us move toward solutions and processes that result in strong cultures your competition cant copy. Henryk Krajewski is vice-president and national practice leader of consulting with Right Management in Toronto. He can be reached at henryk.krajewski@ right.com or (888) 926-1324 ext. 249.

New solutions for old problems

One new solution concerns the idea of commitment and the extent to which it can be accurately measured. Its astoundingly simple in concept if you are interested in tapping into whether individuals are actually aligned with the organizations mission, culture and values, you should simply ask those questions. Researchers John Meyer, Natalie Allen and Lynne Satov have examined this very question and produced a variety of measures of this important factor. The research indicates emotion-based (affective) commitment to an organizations values and goals is strongly connected to higher retention, productivity and performance. Beyond a mere precursor to engagement, this emotion- and values-based con-

The evidence
Many people point to seminal research in the Journal of Applied Psychology by James Harter, Frank Schmidt and Theodore Hayes (2002) as evidence that engagement surveys do indeed impact profit and productivity. However, what is commonly overlooked when citing this research is that it shows engagement predicts just one per cent of a companys total profit. Thats not exactly the kind of compelling evidence that is going to convince chief executive officers to start lining up at the engagement survey store.

Copyright Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd., December 1, 2008, Toronto, Ontario, (800) 387-5164. Web site: www.hrreporter.com