Part One and Two Engagement Document

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EngagementandHighPotentialsLecture.docx

Engagement and High Potentials

You might assume high-potential employees are among the most engaged, but research shows that not to be the case, as Professor Nishii explains in this video. The percentage of employees who are actively disengaged ranges from 10-20%, and the estimate is higher among "high potentials," or star players, as compared to average employees. The high-potential employees are the ones you do not want to lose, and this suggests that you have to increase your efforts to keep young stars engaged. That may mean recognizing them early and often, exciting them by linking their individual goals to corporate ones, and letting them help solve the company’s biggest problems.

Okay, so I wanted to talk a little bit about engagement and high potentials. So high-potential employees are presumably the employees that offer the most value to organizations. The employees the organizations really care most about keeping. And you might be surprised to hear that the data shows that high- potential employees tend to be more disengaged, right. The levels of disengagement among high potentials is higher than it is among average employees. There was a study done by the Corporate Leadership Council of about 100 companies worldwide. And what they found was that the number one mistake that companies make when it comes to developing and retaining their high-potential talent is assuming that their high potentials are highly engaged. In reality however, one in three high-potential employees admits to not being engaged in their work. And one in four admits that they intend to leave the company within a year. So why is that the case? There are a couple of explanations. One is that high potentials have high expectations. They know that they are performing, right? Or that they're better anyway than their peers, therefore, they've been labeled as high potentials. And they expect to be treated well by the company in return. The other reason is that they have more alternatives. So if they were told to kind of tough it out, they would be more likely to say, no thank you. Because they have the confidence that if they were to look on the market, they'd probably be able to find another job. And so companies are responding to this by trying to engage their high potentials in different ways. And ways that help these high-potential employees to feel like they are having an impact. That there is significance associated, right, with value that's attached to the contributions that they make. So one company, for example, set up a forum, a discussion forum, that involve the CEO directly with high potential employees. And the CEO would pose questions that keep him up at night, right. Challenges that the company faces. And open it up for the high-potential employees to offer their ideas about how the company might address those issues. And this gave the high-potential employees an opportunity to really feel like they were being listened to. That it mattered that they had access to the top. And this was enough to increase their engagement and to lower their intentions to leave the company.

Even when the bonus pool is running dry, companies can still get their high-potential talent excited, says Professor Nishii. One retail company rewards its stars by running banner ads celebrating their successes on its intranet, offering them telecommuting or other flexible work options, and even naming company-wide initiatives after them. A large manufacturer gives rising stars privileged access to online discussion boards led by the CEO that are dedicated to the company’s biggest challenges. Emerging leaders are encouraged to visit the boards daily to share ideas and opinions and to raise their hands for assignments. The site not only boosts their involvement and captures innovative ideas but also gives the CEO and other senior leaders a direct line to the company’s best and brightest.

Engagement vs. Other Attitudes

It's critical to distinguish between engagement and other employee attitudes such as organizational satisfaction, commitment, and pride, as Professor Nishii explains. Measures of employee attitudes like satisfaction or pride to work for the company tell us nothing about how absorbed employees are in the work that they do, nor about the extent of discretionary effort they are investing in their work.

Okay, now let's compare engagement with other related employee attitudes. The term engagement is used by almost everybody, but in reality it's actually rather loosely defined. I think when the term was first introduced, people were so enamored with it that the concept sort of took off before there were clear definitions and measurement tools around engagement. And sometimes I've seen surveys are stamped with the label engagement survey. But if you dig deeper into the survey, you find that actually the core concepts underlying engagement aren't really the focus of measurement and instead, these surveys are measuring other related employee attitudes like satisfaction and commitment. They're related but they're not the same as engagement. And it's important for you to know the difference between engagement and satisfaction. Engagement is more than satisfaction. While engagement involves striving and seeking and that energy that people invest, in the form of initiative and perseverance, satisfaction implies contentment with one's current state. It reflects an employee's global evaluation of their relationship with the organization. And it's determined by factors like job security and employee benefits, and promotion opportunity. These drivers usually cannot really be changed all that much by managers. They require corporate-level change. But in contrast, engagement, the drivers of engagement have more to do with the work itself and are more under the control of a line manager. The factors that impact an employee's ability to maximize his or her contribution to the company, these are the drivers of engagement. So examples are things like having a chance to use one's skills. And being able to see a clear link between one's work and a company's objectives. Many of these things are things that the manager can help to influence. So I'm going to give you an example. I have a friend who loves his job. He's paid pretty well. He can take long lunch breaks without really getting in trouble, the work isn't all too hard, his coworkers are friendly, he gets to dress casually, he has good health insurance, and the company has a good reputation. So he's proud to say that he works for this company. So in terms of commitment and satisfaction, off the charts, really high. But is he a highly engaged employee? 

Not necessarily. I'll give you another analogy. So imagine my boyfriend gave me a ring and I said "what's this?" And he said "this is a satisfaction ring." That would connote something pretty different than if he said, this is an engagement ring. A satisfaction ring would connote that he's content with how things have been and would like to express that. Whereas saying it's an engagement ring suggests that he is investing himself into the future of this relationship and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the relationship nice and strong because he believes in it and he wants it. So I hope those examples help you to see that they're not the same thing even though they are related.

The Difference Between Engagement and Satisfaction

Key Points

Only engagement actually predicts employee performance.

Engagement involves striving, seeking, and passion.

Satisfaction involves how content people are with their work arrangement.

The research is clear: Even though satisfaction and engagement are related constructs, only engagement actually predicts employee performance. This is because engagement — but not satisfaction — refers to the psychological and behavioral energy associated with work, and it is this energy that yields performance, not employee satisfaction with their employment arrangement.

Engagement involves striving, seeking, and passion — investment in the organization’s success. It connotes activation and energy; and by "energy," think of the psychological and behavioral energy associated with work. It is this energy that yields performance.

Satisfaction is more about what people report the organization does for them and how content they are with their arrangement; it tells us nothing about their work-related energy or behaviors. Satisfaction connotes contentment with the current state: the work conditions, the employment arrangement, job security, employee benefits, promotion opportunities, and so on. These drivers may be what attracts people to the job but not what engages them once they are in the job.