A Fine Line

Many times in business we must walk a fine line.  I was just reading a piece from a company that was talking about work force engagement.  I have pushed the "I believe" button that having an engaged work force makes the difference between good and great organizations.  I have asked myself can you go far to a point where the business loses sight of it's objectives.  I know that Marissa Mayer was not very popular at Yahoo for requiring employees to be present in the office but... one can argue that the company's performance has notably improved over the past few months.  Food for thought.

I was once interviewing with a company for an executive position in another state.  I ended up sharing a ride to the interview with another person interviewing at the same company.  At the end of the day the HR VP walked me out and spent the entire time talking about their work force engagement scores being 94% and that they had an executive goal of getting to 96%. Turns out I shared a car to the airport with the same person I  rode to the interview with.  She confided that the company had a serious quality issue that was placing their future at risk.  Further, she told me that they told her that she wasn't a fit because she was too driven and too direct for the environment.  I had talked to a number of employees from the company and they all truly loved the environment and the focus on work life balance but not one mentioned any concerns for the business's future.  In fact, no one seemed to care that they had a looming crisis.  When I talked with their leadership they were all plenty concerned but not the employees.  The fact that the leadership seemed more concerned about work force engagement and yet, the employees didn't seem to be concerned about the future of their company gave me pause to reflect.

Leadership and the team must collaborate for the organization to be sustainably successful.  There is no question about that however, there does need to be a shared responsibility between what the organization does to make the employees successful and what the employees do to make the business successful.  When that equation gets out of balance bad things happen.  Performance will degrade and talent will choose to go elsewhere.

I have worked for organizations that rely on work force engagement surveys to drive a lot of their initiatives.  The fact is that all of the data out there points to one thing.  Employee engagement is driven by their leadership.  If the employees feel that their leadership truly cares about them, communicates effectively, helps them set and achieve their personal goals, and rewards them fairly, they will be more highly engaged.  I have led organizations through difficult times and  have reaped the benefits from a committed, engaged work force.  This came from an investment in communicating with the organization and doing my level best to make sure their needs were met first but it paid off in spades.

If the company does not sincerely care about their team members and make investments in their personal successes, then they can expect to have subpar performance, high turnover and difficulty in attracting the best talent.  Conversely, if the leadership does not make it clear what it expects in return and ensure that they are use a reward system based on performance and not just on participation.  I warn all my leaders that I am a "Card Carrying Capitalist" and I expect them to be when it comes to rewarding performance.  There is a shared responsibility for employee engagement and company performance.  When the team delivers it shoudl be rewarded accordingly.  Conversely, when the organization needs people to rally for the cause, the employees should rise to the occasion.