The last few days have been bad ones for those that believe that human capital strategies can turn decent organizations into truly exemplary ones when it comes to employee engagement ideas translating to lower turnover, greater retention, and higher productivity.

First there was this post by author Jonathan Fields that argued that great companies don't exist, which I addressed in my previous post.  And then, today, Tim Sackett of HRU Technical Resources wrote on Fistful of Talent that employee engagement is a "worthless metric."  Here's his justification:

Once a year we, the HR Dept., are going to justify our jobs for a month as we roll out our annual Employee Engagement Survey and then act like Nazis and throw pizza parties in the attempt to get everyone to fill one out.  Then spend [sic] the next month collecting all the data and making the largest PowerPoint presentation on the planet, so we can show our senior executive team the good, bad and ugly.  Finally, we add fat free pudding to the cafeteria menu as a response to our two month project.  Really!?  Is this adding value?  Lou Holtz said it best "Motivation is simple.  You eliminate those who are not motivated."

While I agree with the advice Sackett repeats from Lou Holtz, I take issue with the argument that employee engagement research is a lost cause and a waste of money.  Clients of our workplace consulting and training services certainly don't view it that way.  Check out these case studies of three of them on our website.  Outcomes from our analysis of what employees of these client firms were saying and subsequent assistance included, respectively:

• A huge uptick in the percentage of employees who feel that senior leadership took their feedback seriously
• Profitability after 13 months of declining revenues
• A better-functioning team with higher morale and a CEO who is a more effective leader

Need more evidence?  Read these posts on our blog:

• 30 Employee Development Strategies to Boost Productivity
• Six Ways to Measure the ROI of Employee Engagement
• Google Employees Can't Get No Satisfaction?
• Unorthodox Trust Building and Its ROI for the Company
• Great Employee Engagement Can Keep Jobless Claims from Climbing Even Higher

Still think employee engagement best practices are worthless?  Send me a comment and tell my why you think so.