A New Theoretical Construct for Employee Engagement

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine (John Blenkinsopp) shared a soon to be published paper that he co-authored.?It is a review of the research literature on employee engagement, which is scheduled for publication sometime in September (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053482221000012).?This caused me to dig into some of the articles that I have filed away on the subject, including what many believe to be the first research article on employee engagement by Kahn (https://www.talenteck.com/academic/Kahn-1990.pdf).???Many of the initial research papers on the subject, including Kahn, treated the constructs of engagement and disengagement as dichotomous, leaving out the intermediate state of being unengaged.?This caused me to ponder something that I had noticed in our research on the subject.

Most modern researchers and practitioners approach employee engagement as almost a linear progression, with disengagement on one end, engagement on the other, and unengagement in the middle.?Our research and application practices clearly demonstrate that this concept is in error.?An employee would not need to go from being disengaged to unengaged before becoming engaged.?Disengaged employees are quite capable of becoming instantly engaged, just as engaged employees can become instantly disengaged.?Our model puts engagement on a circular continuum, rather than linear, allowing for the movement of employees directly between engagement and disengagement, bypassing unengagement.?

We know that there are employees who feel a connection to their work and their customers, but who are disconnected to the organization for a variety of reasons.?These are often the disengaged employees who we can transition to engagement directly.?In fact, they may have been engaged at one time, and then something happened that caused them to become disengaged.?These employees are quite different from some of the self-centered disengaged employees who think things are all about them and are often quite mercenary.?Gaining engagement in these people is almost an impossibility, with even the average exceptional organization being unable to eliminate disengaged employees (see chart above).?

This may mean that there are essentially two primary sub-groups of disengaged employees, with other sub-groups falling under them (CAVE dwellers; DIVAs, etc.).?If we look at engagement and disengagement as two separate constructs, with the ability to coexist at the same time, then we might find a way to explain what is going on.?If we create a simple two-by-two matrix, with “Disengagement No” and “Disengagement Yes” across the top, and “Engagement No” and Engagement Yes going down the side, we get the following boxes going across the top, starting in the top right corner, and going counterclockwise:

• Engagement No / Disengagement Yes – a Disengaged Employee – someone who is upset with their jobs and/or the organization, and who often causes problems for their coworkers and management.?On a scale of 1 to 10, they are performing at a 4 and below.?
• Engagement No / Disengagement No – an Unengaged employee – someone who comes to work, does what they are told, and then goes home.?They aren’t solving problems but aren’t causing them either.?On a scale of 1 to 10, they are performing at a 5, 6, or 7.
• Engagement Yes / Disengagement No – an Engaged employee – someone who is connected to their job and the larger Vision (Aligned Purpose, Values, and Goals) of the organization.?They understand the organization’s Purpose and long-term Goals, and can act within the Values of the organization to solve problems before they become big ones.?They are consistently highly productive; on a scale of 1 to 10, they are performing at 8, 9, or 10.?
• Engagement Yes / Disengagement Yes – this is the new category of disengaged employee that we are preliminary calling At-Risk Performer.?They may be committed to their jobs and customers, and even the espoused Purpose, Values, and Goals of the organization, but finds incongruity between what is professed and how management actually operates.?They may become subdued in their performance, unwilling to take chances for the sake of the organization, or even quite outspoken, sometimes complaining to customers, causing disruptions in operations and for coworkers.?This tends to place their performance on a scale of 1 to 10 still down in the 4 or below area, although some individuals may perform higher.?

Our research has indicated that employee engagement is an emotional state, and that four of the Seven Elements of High Performance? combine in different ways to create the Five Key Emotions of Engagement?.?These are as follows:

• Trust and Vision = Right Relationships – emotion is a feeling of “I Belong”
• Vision and Strengths = Doing Good Work – emotion is a feeling of “My Work is Important”
• Trust and Strengths = Support – emotion is a feeling of “I am Cared About”
• Strengths and Personal Responsibility = Empowerment – emotion is a feeling of “I am in Control”
• Personal Responsibility and Vision = Accomplishment – emotion is a feeling of “I am Making a Difference”

If engagement and disengagement do exist as separate constructs that can coexist at the same time, then it has some implications that I believe have not been addressed by the research so far.?We have identified that engaging employees is a two-step process:

1. Address and eliminate hygiene factors (e.g., pay, benefits, etc.; see Herzberg) as a sense of dissonance and emotional upset; and
2. Ensure that the Five Key Emotions are being generated through the organization’s culture, leadership practices, and everyday behavior.?

But what about disengagement??Is it merely a result of having either hygiene factors or one or more of the Five Key Emotions not being met??Most likely, but my initial inclination, after 20 years of research on this topic, is that, like everything else, overcoming disengagement may be unique to the individual, based on what is important to them.?

For example, there may be the single parent that pay, while generous, is still not enough to meet the needs of their family.?Or an employee who is a “go getter” but inexperienced, and they believe that they have not been empowered enough to make decisions that are beyond their current skill level. ?Another example may be what my colleague and his coauthors alluded to: that an otherwise highly engaged employee is simply burned out from overwork and “giving it their all” all the time, and the disengagement is a personal defense mechanism.?Any of these may be one of those At-Risk Performers, and we merely need to manage expectations, provide more coaching or help them to better manage other aspects of their lives, such as providing help on financial literacy, or help them make better choices for insurance options.?Sometimes it simply takes giving them a breather, even forcing them to take time off.?These are the people who may be easy wins to gain their full engagement and eliminate those traces of disengagement.

Others, on the other hand, may be a real challenge.?After all, even the best organizations still have 7% of their employees as disengaged on average.?Some employees simply are not a good fit with the organization, its Vision, or its culture.?These employees need to be gently helped to find a better fit for them and move on.?I also believe that there are some individuals that, even when all the “right” levers have been pulled, they are still not going to overcome their disengagement.?These employees may be great performers on the surface, hitting all their numbers, but often they are doing it at the expense of their fellow employees, causing bigger problems down the road for their coworkers and their customers.?

The bottom line is that any employee who destroys Trust or violates the organization’s Values simply cannot stay in the organization.?Allowing them to stay creates distrust in management, and leads to the creation of disengagement in those who are already engaged.?Once you have attained Exceptional status in your employee engagement efforts, it should not be that hard to identify those few who really need to go.?As the bell curve to the right demonstrates, with the vast majority of an exceptional organization’s employees performing at 7 or above, those that are at the 4 level and below are quite easy to discern.?

While I have no empirical research to support the approach of viewing engagement and disengagement as two separate constructs as opposed to being dichotomous, this theoretical concept does help explain what we have experienced in applying our research to real-world situations.?I believe that the 2x2 matrix of engagement/disengagement does a good job of explaining those At-Risk Performers, providing for some possible quick wins in helping increase an organization’s engagement levels, and its performance levels.?It also maintains a circular relationship between the constructs.?

I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this new theoretical concept of a 2x2 matrix of engagement/disengagement.?Please share below, and let’s have a discussion.?I may not respond right away, allowing for others to chime in first, but I will monitor the discussion.?I am very interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts on this approach to dealing with employee engagement constructs.????