Engage smarter.
Six years.
Dozens of teams.
Hundreds of employees.
And the key to engagement.
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Q: Why is engagement stuck at less than 1 in 4 globally, after years and billions of dollars of effort to boost it?
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A: Because we've fundamentally misunderstood how engagement works.​
We undertook a six-year study of the problem.
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Here's what we found:
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#1 Amazon bestseller, Business Management & Leadership, April/May 2024. Get it here.
​1. Engagement = productivity.
Performance of Top Quartile vs Bottom Quartile Companies by Engagement
Source: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2022
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Gallup, the global leader in engagement research and analytics, finds engagement to be strongly correlated with performance.
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Between bottom and top quartile engagement companies:
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Profitability is 23% greater.
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Productivity is 18% higher.
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Growth is 18% higher.
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Turnover is 43% lower.
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Gallup does not disclose precise figures.
But assuming bottom quartile means ≤ 15% and top quartile ≤ 50%, a one percent increase in engagement drives an even greater increase in productivity.
​The impact of "active disengagement"—the behavior of an average 15% of employees that deliberately hinder performance—is even more dramatic.
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Mapping Gallup country statistics against OECD statistics, a 1% decrease in active disengagement corresponds to a 5% increase in productivity.
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In short: engagement's power to drive performance is much more than a theory.​
Productivity vs Active Disengagement by OECD country, 2017
Source: Gallup, OECD
Active Disengagement (Inverse Scale)
2. Engagement drivers are well understood — and manageable.
The ingredients of high or low engagement may feel like a mystery—especially after a surprising survey.
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They're not.
Gallup has studied over 3.3 million workers to identify 12 factors that drive engagement.
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(Learn more about the science here.)
Some seem obvious—like the need to understand what's expected and to have the tools to deliver.
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Others—having a best friend at work—less so.
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The key takeaway?
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Virtually all turn largely on one underlying driver:
The capability and attitudes of their direct manager.
The Q12
Source: Gallup
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I know what is expected of me at work.
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I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
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At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
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In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
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My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
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There is someone at work who encourages my development.
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At work, my opinions seem to count.
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The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
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My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
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I have a best friend at work.
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In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
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This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.
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Source: McKinsey & Company
The Purpose Gap
3. Why leaders don't get it.
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McKinsey and Company recently asked a thousand people if they agreed they could live their purpose at work.
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Among "upper managers", 85% said yes.
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Among everyone else—the frontline managers and employees that make up about 98% of the workforce—only 15% agreed.
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This "Purpose Gap" speaks volumes about why low engagement has proven so intractable.
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It can be generalized as a "Leadership Gap."
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Leaders simply don't share the same experience—and so understand the challenges—of what's happening outside their offices.
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It's hard to feel engaged if you can't feel your own impact.​
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As one Gen Z put it to us:
"I often ​feel like a musician who can't hear themselves play."
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4.Engagement's 3 C's: Clarity,
Coaching, and Consistency.
The 3 C's of Engagement
Source: Framework
The takeaways for leaders are clear. ​
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Employees need more CLARITY: on what they're supposed to deliver, what resources they are entitled to, and what the consequences are of performance.
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Managers need COACHING: developing their skills and capacity to support their people. (Gallup has found 82% to be unqualified when hired or promoted. 58% claim to receive no training.)
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Senior leaders need more CONSISTENCY: from carrying through on commitments to not tolerating toxic behavior in their ranks.
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Leaders
need
CONSISTENCY
Managers
need
COACHING
Employees
need
CLARITY
5. Move fast:
Employees expect action.​
Employee Sentiment Change After a Slow Engagement Implementation
Source: Framework
Don't let "great" be the enemy of "getting going."
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The moment employees submit survey feedback, they expect something to be done about it.
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Leaders who take a few more weeks to understand the results in depth are not only taking precious time.
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They look like they don't care.
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The results tend to look like this. Engaged employees tend to be patient.
Everyone else is not. A slow moving or partial response tends to push neutral employees into disengagement—and the company's eNPS goes down.
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Above all remember: a bias to action does not mean foregoing analysis and insight.
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It means doing them at the same time—which tends to make them better.
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So here's what we do about it.
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