The Good, Bad and the Ugly: Dealing with "employee engagement"

Why? Asks most of the people, why do we have to be loyal to a corporate brand who doesn’t really care about us? This has become a more frequent line of conversation I’ve tend to hear increasingly in daily chatter going around with corporate employees. So much so that it has become a “buzz word”, where not only employees but firms are actively looking out on ways to ensure that they have a positive perception maintained in employees’ eyes. That implies they are “cool” to work with and has a genuine interest in looking out for the people that work for them.

“Employee loyalty”, is that really a thing? I too had the questions some time back? Do we really try to give something more than what is actually expected of us to our employers? Are we obligated, is there a benefit of doing so? Or are we just clearing the path to more work? Do we have to add more into our side of equation, just because we feel comfortable, our (company’s and employees) goals align with each other, just because we are treated fairly, freedom and sincere understanding from employers towards work life balance and etc.?

Answer to former question will largely depend on individuality of the person, but not necessarily on the way how an organization treats their employees. Based on my observations and personal experience on different types of people, I’ve been able to develop an “employee engagement matrix” based on employee characteristics and action taken by organizations to build engaging employees. This “employee engagement matrix” includes commitment from employees and support required from organizations for employees.

Now let’s get in to decoding the groups of people included in the matrix,

First up are the zombies, these are most common type of people whom you will brush your shoulders in hallways everyday and would not notice they are there. One may think that they are unfortunate to not being given the opportunity rise within the ranks, but in reality, they tend to fly under the radar deliberately. Rationale behind being invisible is to ensure that they do what is only required of them, not an ounce more. They tend to respond only to authority, no positive reinforcements from an organizational would change the way they are, simply following orders and would stay the same for the time to come.

Second are employees whom I refer to as “Live wires”, who are naturally more enthusiastic and would not care about the returns in doing what they do in their normal work life. They are self-starters, who would develop necessary attitudes, competencies and interpersonal skills required to complete a particular job. Most important characteristic of all in Liver wires is that they tend to ignite sparks in people around them. Further, they will actively push others to the direction of achieving the organizational vision and corporate objectives.

Then there are “Jump starters”, who will always tend to go far after a little nudge from the others (could be the company, peers, superior or some external person or an event) It has to be understood that while company is not the main driving factor in inducing people to bring more to the table their action have a substantial catalytic effect.

Finally, there are “vacuum feeders”, these types of employees tend to stay in higher positions in the hierarchy, despite large concentration of organizational resources and support they tend to delivery very poor results. Often it may be poor work ethics, insufficient knowledge to perform at higher levels, lethargic culture and other individualistic characteristics. Irrespective of all the effort by an organization, these employees tend to deliver below the par results, however depending on the context their performance may show seasonal peaks. This phenomenon would the best that could be expected out of this category.

Ultimately, an organization should have a multitude of strategies to handle each category of employees with different approach. Since employees would tend to change over time as listed in the “employee engagement matrix” depending on the context and resource concentration. There is no universal strategy to handle organizational employees, but it is of utmost importance that an organizational acknowledges the diversity of the work force and develops strategies to harness the present strengths and puts efforts in nurturing desired skills, attitudes and competencies.