How to Keep Your People Checked In (and your Business Thriving)

77% of the workforce globally as per the most recent Gallup report is either Quiet Quitting (not engaged but not voicing it) or Loud Quitting (disengaged and making no secret of it). Such low engagement, Gallup estimates, costs the global economy US$8.8 trillion and accounts for 9% of global GDP.

Those are staggering global numbers. But it's someone else's problem, you say. And you move on. After all, you have a business to run, targets to meet, valuations to achieve.

But Is it Really Someone Else's Problem?

Think about it, and let's put some perspective to this. Whether you have a 100 people, a 1000 or 30,000, disengagement is YOUR problem.

If 77% of the workforce is disengaged, what you are essentially doing is asking 23% of the people to demonstrate such high productivity that the company's results show the continuous improvement your shareholders demand. 23 of your 100 strong workforce must therefore take on the job of transforming a startup into a Unicorn. 230 of your 1000 employees must bear the burden of trebling the valuation in 3-years as your Private Equity owner dictates. The responsibility devolves on 6900 of your 30,000 strong organization to meet the Board's target of achieving Top 5 ranking in the industry.

Seriously? Not only is this an unfair ask, but with global workforce reported stress levels at 44%, you are inviting your best, most productive people to disintegrate mentally. Can you imagine any high performing team or organization, in any occupation, be it in manufacturing, tech, financing services, or elite sport, surviving this?

As you can imagine, there is only one logical end to this story. And your shareholders (and you as leaders personally) will like that outcome even less than the costs of recognising and tackling this issue early. The cost-benefit analysis will quickly show you that taking these steps in time, will make minimal dents on the quarterly bottom line. As a leader, cold logic dictates you have little choice but to do something about it immediately.

Here's What YOU Can Do

A. Deep Thinking and Getting People to Embrace the Culture and Vision

Let's get something abundantly clear - Vision, Mission, Values (or VMV) are only useful when they are not just plaques on walls, HR mandated screensavers, and feel good brochures on reception coffee tables.

And to be honest, they mostly are just that. They do nothing to engage employees more and solve the productivity issues you have. They undoubtedly help with PR and branding, but neither of those will help you when results plummet due to a sharp drop in productivity or significant attrition.

And what most leaders don't consider while propagating them are a couple of key things.

First, that while having a Vision for the company is the exclusive purview of a leader or leaders, that vision to get executed, needs the buy-in of those with feet on the ground. So just putting up the VMV cannot be a tick-the-box exercise. There has to be open and extended engagement with people to understand, accept and allow them to embrace it in their daily lives.

Second, and the more difficult concept to grasp for us, is that Culture does not get set unilaterally from the top.

In a world that increasingly has its tone determined by a young workforce with divergent priorities and understanding of the world, company culture needs to be a happy mix of the must haves of leadership (could be things like ethics and integrity for example) with those of the workforce (must-have elements that they look for in a workplace).

This is a process that we at Two Roads are insistent on in all the work we do with our clients. In our experience there really is no other way to ensure buy in, improve engagement and loyalty, and positively impact productivity increase in today's world. When you do things right, you get the right outcomes.

B. Measuring Engagement and Actioning Results to Demonstrate you Care

Dr. Vivienne Ming in a recent talk hosted by our partners Hyper Island APAC titled Building People for the Unknown, made an assertion that applies not just to the world of AI which she has done pioneering work in, but to leadership itself. She spoke about the fact that what makes people special as opposed to the most advanced artificial intelligence is our ability to answer unposed questions.

When we measure engagement and seek feedback, the idea should not be to ask posed questions that seek to confirm the answers we want. Instead, send out a survey that genuinely asks people for their original free flowing thoughts on what's going on at the company and what is it exactly they seek from it. This will genuinely help build engagement because then you have actually asked people what they want instead of what they feel about what you have done in the past.

But make no mistake. This by itself won't change the engagement balance. The best companies then action the feedback. And get the grassroots people involved in making these changes. Make it clear that its a joint effort to 'walk the walk' together.

This is where most of us as leaders fail. We do the grunt work but then actually shy away from making the changes. The next time you avoid making the hard calls, just ask yourself the exponential financial value of getting the engagement up of just 10% more of your workforce. And then decide how important it is to demonstrate that you care.

C. Being the Manager YOU always Wanted to Have

Remember how frustrated you were as a young and/or a junior member of the team when your manager and you barely spoke? And when they did engage, the conversation was never about the things that mattered to you.

Well, don't be that manager now that it's in your power to make the change. Have regular conversations with your people one-on-one when you can, or as a group when you can't. And encourage every manager below you to do the same.

But here's the thing - it is as much about what you say as it's about the chat itself. So why not use the time to talk about what matters most to both of you - recognise and appreciate what the person has done, discuss how they collaborate with colleagues and the relationship with them, talk about their current goals and priorities at work, and pivot all conversations around what you consider the strengths of the person and explore with them how best those strengths can be used.

We cannot positively change the outlook and behaviour of 100% of the people who work with us. But in making a real effort to engage our people better, using the right tools and approach, what we can do is cut back on disengagement and keep MOST of our people checked in.

Imagine a situation where instead of 23%, 40% of your workforce is actually fully engaged. A scenario where attrition drops from 25% to 15% because your people genuinely WANT to work for the organization. A time when young talent line up to join up because you now have a culture in place that makes them feel included.

If we as leaders can achieve that, productivity, and by extension the financial health of the business will take care of itself.

Connect with us at [email protected] to discuss how we can help you put in place a Culture where your people check-in, but don't ever feel the need to check-out.