Worker Satisfaction Is Overrated
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What's the difference between a satisfied and an engaged employee? Only everything, argues Globoforce, a Westborough, Mass., work force solutions company. The crux of the difference between the two is discretionary effect, or in laymen's terms, the likelihood that an employee will go the extra mile to get a job done. A satisfied worker probably will not, but an engaged one doesn't think twice before pulling out all of the stops. "It's amazing how engagement has come out of nowhere to become one of the biggest buzzwords in the HR industry. ... We've all worked at companies where employees had a spring in their step and enjoyed their work--those employees are engaged, and are willing to work above and beyond the call of duty," Eric Mosley, CEO of Globoforce told eWEEK. It's not that satisfied workers don't want to do their job; on the contrary, by labeling themselves as satisfied with their jobs, they're saying that they are fairly content with the status quo. But it doesn't mean that they'd be willing to go out of their way to do better, because they're not sure that there is any reason to bother. "Satisfaction is a measurement of the past; engagement is more future-looking," said Mosley. A recent study by the Corporate Leadership Council, a human resources research company, found that increased engagement could be the "tipping point" in retaining employees; in fact, increased engagement was found to lead to a 57 percent improvement in discretionary effort. Furthermore, increased discretionary effort improved performance by 20 percent and reduced attrition by 87 percent. Highly engaged organizations grew profits three times faster than their competitors. Still, the concept of engagement is often overlooked by managers because many erroneously believed that it was a personality type issue, in which some workers were predisposed to be engaged and others were not. "Employees were saying that they weren't engaged because they felt underappreciated. They felt like they could work much harder, but nobody would notice. As soon as workers feel that way, it's over, and you'll never really get anything extra out of them," said Mosley. Beyond a lack of recognition, unclear demands had a significant impact on the engagement of employees. "Factors that related to confusion of work specifications, roles and what they are to do on a daily basis radically reduces productivity and happiness in employees. Workers with confused roles can easily blame others when things go wrong because they feel that vacuum and apathy sets in," said Mosley. Nowadays, bosses are being encouraged to consider engagement something that can be won in employees through good management. "We've all been there; we've all been disengaged, or have become disengaged due to poor management or a lack of recognition of our accomplishments. It's up to the manager to recover this discretionary work enthusiasm," said Mosley. |
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Comments (7)
The article says that 'Highly engaged organizations grew profits three times faster than their competitors'.
I would guess that the CEO's salary and bonuses would increase, but the worker's pay would be flat.
It is too bad that most or all of the benefits only go to the people at the top.
Posted by Sam | August 23, 2007 1:33 PM
This is simply a concept attempted in the 1960's by management that has been repackaged. Truly satisfied workers are valuable. Engaged workers often leave a company due to frustrations and lack of managerial support. Bottom line - if you have a good employee reward that employee; if you have a bad employee terminate that employee; if you have a middle-of-the-road employee give them some direction.
Posted by W Ghram | August 24, 2007 1:32 PM
The person who had this bright idea didn't think it through. It certainly is possible for someone to be engaged and dissatisfied, likely more often the case than not. So personality cannot be dismissed so easily. And is someone who is engaged and also dissatisfied, the benefits cited for engagement over mere satisfaction certainly do not follow.
Posted by John Kozy | August 24, 2007 3:49 PM
This stuff that has been around since 1954
with the publication of Maslow's Motivation and
Personality. It is popularly taught in Business Schools and Industrial Engineering Curricula as
Industrial Human Behavior or some such thing. Changing motivated to engaged is typical
publish-or-perish academic BS. There are satisfiers
and motivators for people and satisfiers will keep
you at the job, while motivators get you going.
Salary and benefits are satisfiers.
Status, responsibility, working relationships,
achievement and personal fulfillment are the
motivators. Guess which ones most companies don't
pay any attention to.
Posted by Gary Harkin | August 28, 2007 3:12 PM
I'm satisfied my spouse is seeing someone on the side. I am certainly not pleased.
To be engaged is something shy of being married.
Engagement is pleasing.
Marriage has responsibility.
HR is convinced payrol and engagement can be divorced. HR doesn't appreciate marriage vs engagement.
To remain satisfactorily married, financial engagement is no longer a night out on the town. Financial engagement is an ever increasing responsibility. Management must listen up, pay attention, get engaged, and follow through with full time financial responsibility. If the family is fully financed, the engagement is a satisfied marriage. If the spouse is married to work, an engaged salary will never be satisfactory.
Posted by Cornstoves | August 28, 2007 5:22 PM
This is just more corporate management psycho Babel. Most persons can be motivated with good compensation, challenging work assignments, job security and room for advancement. Stop finding excuses to send jobs to India and rewarding top management with big salary increases for eliminating jobs.
Posted by M DeVore | September 4, 2007 3:37 PM
I stop to wonder who is writing these comments. Your employees being engaged in their job is far more important that any of these comments are conveying.
I work for what was a very fast growing small business that was bought out by a very large corporation. While still independent, I was engaged and thriving in my position. I was motivated and happy. After the corporation came in we were satisfied; we received better benefits, more pay, more vacation time. But I am no longer engaged in the company because its all about the bottom line. I work less efficiently because I really don't care whether I do a satisfactory job or an increasable job, corporate wont notice.
I think you should seriously consider the information in this article as a tool. Engagement is everything when it comes to getting the most out of your employees.
Posted by Amanda | November 8, 2007 11:02 AM