Reclaiming the Past or Embracing the Future? The Battle for Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace

First, leaders were asking people to come back to the office a few days a week. Now, the entire concept of remote work is under the microscope, and so is work-life balance.

• On January 25, President Trump issued an Executive Order requiring all heads of departments and agencies in the executive branch of government to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.

• The CEO of a prominent investment bank suggested that employees who didn’t want to come to the office full-time look for another job. 

• A major tech founder publicly released a memo suggesting employees work at the office every weekday and 60 hours weekly was the "sweet spot" for productivity. 

  
  

And just like that, we’re contemplating a return to hustle culture -- the era when long hours were a rite of passage and an expectation. The era when burnout was the norm.

What are the initial responses to the shift backward? Not good.  So why do it? 

I think it’s safe to say leaders are trying to reclaim their cultures – and they believe a return to the past is the solution.

Fact: Since the year 2000, disengagement has persisted among employees. Over the past 25 years, companies have thrown a great deal of money at the problem, and there are likely hundreds of thousands of articles and thought pieces written on the topic. Yet, according to Gallup, the number of actively engaged employees in the United States has averaged less than 33 percent.

The numbers are telling. We’re flunking employee engagement. There are many myths and misunderstandings when it comes to this topic. Let’s address a few in brief.

Myth: Employee engagement happens naturally

Companies that understand the importance of employee engagement go beyond the annual engagement survey or company picnic: they re-design jobs, change the work environment, add new benefits, continuously develop managers, and invest in their people. Relationship-building begins on day one of an employee’s job and remains a continual effort.

Myth: Employee engagement is an HR effort

The executive team needs to be actively involved in the company’s talent initiatives. After all, employee engagement is the outcome of building an organization that is exciting, fulfilling, meaningful, and fun. It takes the involvement of engaged executives, committed to an organization’s long-term success, to make talent the priority throughout the entire organization. 

Myth: ‘Kids these days’ are impossible to engage

Your organization’s inability to engage talent has very little to do with outside forces. It comes down to you and the other people working with you; either you are creating an environment that engages people or you’re not. If your organization is struggling to engage talent, look within. It’s likely happening because the way your organization treats its talent isn’t engaging or relevant.

Myth: Hire for skills

If turnover is continuous, and you are certain your team is creating a meaningful and exciting work experience, it’s possible you aren’t hiring the right people. The most engaging companies tend to be passionate about their missions and they make sure the people they hire to work there feel the same way. No matter what the work environment is like, you can’t engage someone who doesn’t have passion.

Myth: More fun = more engaged

Indeed, ping pong tables, snacks, beer, and beanbag chairs are fun. But your company doesn’t have to have a ping pong table to engage employees. Perks can potentially serve for attraction, but they aren’t going to serve for retention. Employee engagement is the result of a great relationship, and fun is only one part of a relationship.

Employee engagement hasn’t declined because of remote work or work-life balance initiatives. It’s declined because our organizations aren’t adapting fast enough.

Throughout most of the 20th century, organizations were built for efficiency. Predictability. Productivity. Most innovation was driven from within a company’s four walls. Senior management had both privilege and power, and their core purpose was to urge their teams to drive profits by ‘keeping their nose to the grindstone’, ‘punching a clock’, and ‘paying their dues’.

But that was then.

In this 21st-century Talent Economy, there’s little about our society that’s predictable. In fact, the past two decades are renowned as being the most disruptive in human history. The generations born into this era have little to no memory of command-and-control methodologies. They have only known a world powered by the trademarks of a Talent Economy: innovation, interconnectedness, instantaneousness, and globalization. 

The gap between Industrial Era-raised generations and Talent Economy-raised generations has continued to widen. Until we let the past go and modernize our workforces to be fully capable of competing in a changing marketplace, we will continue to observe widespread skills and knowledge gaps, which will likely lead to more disengagement, business closings, decreased competitiveness, and economic decline.

The solution to declining employee engagement isn’t more rules and restrictions. Expecting employees to work exceedingly long hours isn’t the answer either. This approach is a remnant of the past, and it’s not sustainable in today’s rapidly changing work environment.

The bottom line is this:

If your organization is intentional about building relationships with its employees, people will enjoy coming to work. And when people enjoy coming to work, they are more likely to go the extra mile, and they will treat customers better, innovate, and continuously improve the business.

Employee engagement isn’t something that’s forced. It’s nurtured.