SmartBrief asked a great question this week: Who's in charge of employee engagement?
The media company attempts to answer it by citing a recent post by entrepreneur and management consultant Bret L. Simmons. Simmons argues that companies shouldn't just create a workplace culture that encourages engagement – they need to go further and set the expectation that employees will routinely do the engaging.
This implies a symbiotic relationship, the pinnacle when it comes to generating new ideas and bolstering productivity. Managers engage employees; employees in turn engage their managers. Reflecting the biological definition of symbiosis, both "organisms" benefit from this relationship when it is functioning ideally.
Ah, but there's the key word: ideally. Leaders would love it if their managers could tell their subordinates, "Engage me," and the process begins from that point on without a hitch. But in the real world it just doesn't work that way. Everything from the economy (54% of American workers are ready to bolt from their employer once it turns around, according to a recent survey) to personal and family issues to their relationship with their supervisors can prevent employees from being committed enough to their company to want to actively offer their thoughts on how to improve it.
Another factor here is the nature of most small businesses. A company can be into the hundreds for number of employees and still hinge daily on what the leader says or does. This is why Communispace President and CEO Diane Hessan – one of the keynote speakers at our upcoming conference – records weekly voicemails for all her employees. She sees a core part of her job function as being "chief culture officer," and that means being the employee engagement model.
So while I think it's right to hold mutual engagement up as the goal, I also think it's in leadership's best interest to always be priming the pump, and not abandoning it assuming it will necessarily be primed from the bottom up.
Which party do you think bears the most responsibility for building employee engagement? Why?
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