Employee Engagement in an Era of High Unemployment

Friday, July 22, 2011

What is the impact of high unemployment on employee engagement? You may be surprised by the findings. Anecdotally, you might expect employee engagement to decline as lay-offs are followed by plant closings, followed by frozen 401(k)’s, and declining stock values. However, according to a Center for Creative Leadership report released in July 2010 and sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton, employee engagement actually rose during the recent recession. According to the report’s authors, Jennifer J. Deal, Sarah Stawiski, and William A. Gentry, employee engagement reached its high point just as the economic conditions reached its low point.

How is it possible that faced with the worst economic conditions since the 1930’s Great Depression, employees are even more involved in their employers business than ever? Is it possible that those hard times brought employees and employers together? Is it possible that the worst of times brought out the best in all of us? Was it pure survival instinct? Was it some self serving interest on the part of employees, i.e., what’s in it for me crowd?

The authors agree that essential to raising and maintaining high levels of employee engagement is the role of the organization’s leadership. The authors go on to note that managers must be developed in a way to support and encourage engagement at all levels. It seems almost self-evident that managers would play a key role in employee engagement. But who are our managers? From where do managers come? Often times they are our best accountants, marketers, engineers, software developers, and technicians. Organizations promote their best talent to leadership roles, their best technical talent that is. Well, you certainly would not want to promote the poor performers, would you? Of course not!

However, mangers have to be developed and good managers have to be developed to be good managers. So where are most managers developed? In “B” schools, of course not. Reviewing the course catalogs for a few of the nations tops “B” schools I see course work in accounting, business law, economics, finance, information technology, and marketing. Wait, there is hope, here is a couple of classes in organizational behavior, human recourses, and management theories. So all hope is not lost after all.

Unfortunately, if that new manager lacks a positive role model, a mentor, a coach or continuing development to underscore the need to build and support engagement, employee engagement will not be high on their priority list. A leader in my own organization recently explained the reason why many company initiatives fall to the wayside, they get lost in the “whirlwind” of everyday phone calls, e-mails and crises. Unless employee engagement, just like quality control or customer service, is not keep in front of both managers and employees it too will become lost in the whirlwind.