We need a more human-centered paradigm for employee engagement. The current data-driven, profit-centered approach has been largely unsuccessful. Almost thirty years after the first ‘employee-customer profit chain’ studies began to establish the now-solid link between employee engagement and company performance, the state of employee engagement is considered to be in crisis, with engagement scores at a ten-year low (according to the latest Gallup survey). As we move into an era of increased automation, we at Highrise Vista are committed to a more human approach.
After all, even though organizations measure engagement as a collective phenomenon, engagement actually happens at the individual level. People are engaged one at a time with their bosses, colleagues, tasks, and customers. The typical engagement survey process is designed to measure employee engagement whereas a human-centric approach centers on equipping people directly to engage with each other.
The concept of employee engagement, broadly defined as the motivation to go the “extra mile” to help the company succeed, is well-documented. Emerging in the 1990s, engagement has become a human capital commodity that employers cultivate and measure because they know it impacts customers and performance. A basic tenet of engagement across multiple definitions is emotional attachment. Employees go the extra mile when they care. Ironically, though, engagement programs today have a hyper-focus on data that obscures this fundamentally emotional, relational, and human aspect. If engagement is relational, each individual will experience the relationship with the organization differently, and because individuals and organizations are unique, and relationships are dynamic, data-driven formulas for driving engagement averages only go so far.
If focusing on averages limits the range of human potential, engagement must be addressed individually, via the smallest unit of relationships, interpersonal interactions.
This can be examined by taking a look at a real-world example, such as the common practice of building post-survey action plans at the group level. If the data says work on professional development, the action might be to make a tweak to the performance management system giving all employees more flexibility to try a stretch goal, often with infrequent guidance from managers. In the human-centered approach, managers would need to make an authentic connection and action plan with each individual – an approach that is inherently more engaging than generic action derived from high-level data. Initially, the time investment involved would be significant, but it’s a matter of slowing down to speed up. Engagement is personal and culture lives in individuals.
The human-centered approach is especially important for managers, due to their pivotal influence on engagement. It builds on the knowledge that authenticity is a key trait of manager effectiveness and that managers’ ability to create psychological safety and facilitate alignment are key to driving engagement. It goes beyond managers having empathy for the personal struggles of their teams and paying attention to work-life balance, although these elements are important. A truly human-centered approach requires skillful focus on each individual - by skillful we mean culturally intelligent. Concretely, this means that leaders need to get to know the people on their teams well enough and with enough cultural savvy for each team member to experience psychological safety, excitement, and motivation. Cultural savvy is the ability to consciously shift perspective and adapt behavior to navigate and bridge cultural differences in real time. A simple example of a culturally savvy leadership behavior is providing multiple avenues for people to contribute ideas in meetings rather than expecting everyone to speak up in the same way.
Culturally savvy leaders also make it a priority for everyone to be connected to each other and aligned to shared values and purpose. Such teams are able to unlock tremendous potential and meet their biggest challenges.
Are you satisfied with your employee engagement program at your organization?
Yes
No
We Don't Have A Program
Don't Know
Copyright Highrise Vista 2025
Opmerkingen