The Surgeon Model of Employee Engagement

If you were facing a serious operation and you were offered a choice between different surgeons, all equally technically qualified, what other information would you like to have?

If you were told that research has shown that there was one important data point related to the surgeon that could predict his performance – would you like to know?

What if you were told that the hospital did not investigate this parameter? How would you feel?

This is in reality what happens in most companies today. Companies relentlessly measure employee (and customer) satisfaction as it allegedly predicts employee retention and productivity – or at least it used to in the old industrial ages. Today most companies have high average satisfaction levels and satisfaction is not a competitive element anymore.  Employee satisfaction does not predict performance.

Gallup research has shown that organisations with high Employee Engagement outperform organisations with low Employee Engagement on all financial parameters, have lower absenteeism and fewer accidents and quality issues.

 Still very few companies have started to measure Employee Engagement and the ones that do, have difficulties in translating the results into actionable strategies. In average engagement levels are 15 to 30% depending on country and industry. This is much more difficult to deal with than the normal employee surveys that yield 80% satisfaction levels and cement Status Quo.

             

The difference between highly engaged people and the rest are has a significant impact on performance. With 50% less accidents and 41% quality defects you might be interested to know what level of engagement your surgeon has.

The 4 different levels of engagement:

I am a hostage (Hope your procedure is really simple)

The actively disengaged employees are company assassins; they are actively trying to sabotage the operation. The main drivers of dissatisfaction are often the direct manager, pay, fairness, personal values versus company values or individual incidents. People often want to leave but cannot for some reason. They stay on as hostages which is good for the HR retention KPI but lethal if they deal with customers. Their focus is escape

It is a Job (Don’t get operated near a shift)

This is normally the highest group of employees. They are satisfied employees and believe there is a fair balance between what the company asks and what they deliver. They are however not inspired to do their best and will try to do the minimum acceptable activity to keep their job. They see their job as a way of financing their leisure time in which they can express themselves themselves with something meaningful. Their focus is self interest

It is a career (Hope you don’t have an interesting condition)

The engaged employees have a high degree of focus on personal and professional growth which gives them great potential. They will however put their growth and their mastery ahead of the company and its purpose whenever there is a conflict. When dealing with customers their focus can be more about being right (which they are most of the time) rather than winning the customer relationship and the order. Their focus is Mastery

It is a calling (Hope this is your surgeon)

The actively engaged employees are closely connected to the purpose and values of the company. When dealing with customers they create strong customer engagement and directly impacts revenue and profit levels, especially in a service environment. Most companies do not utilise this great resource but treat their service departments as a cost and outsorce it to a cheap jurisdiction. As a customer you want to be serviced by actively engaged employees as they focus on you. Where would you prefer to invest?  Who do you want to be operated by?

“One great employee equals three average employees” 

Kip Tindall, Container Store

They are willing to go the extra mile and even break the rules to do the right thing for the company. Focus is on helping and providing value to others

How is Engagement created?

The current HR toolbox of “processing people” does not work well when the aim is to increase engagement. The main reason is that engagement is not an attribute of the employee – you cannot hire and fire your way to Employee Engagement. Engagement is an emotional relationship between the organisation and the individual and needs to be addressed at an organisational level.

Another issue is that the creation of Engagement is different from company to company and from situation to situation. The starting point has to be a survey evaluating the individual drivers of Engagement combined with interviews of select employee representatives to understand what really goes on.

Once the situation and drivers are understood for each individual group and engagement level in the organisation, the strategic development can begin. It is quite important to involved people in the strategic process. Far too often the senior management team close the door and cook up a strategy that has no connection to people. By involving people in the strategic development engagement is created and the implementation of the change process will be easier. For more on the strategic process: You cannot separate strategy and implementation

“Employee Engagement is not about changing people – it is about changing organisations”