Employee Engagement: Is it a fluffy cliche?

"I am beset by doubts that our quest for employee engagement is subject to the law of diminishing returns."

"(Employee) Engagement has become something of a buzzword. It is used as shorthand for a lot of things."

"Many organisations only pay lip service to employee engagement."

"The engagement industry has taken on a life of its own; we are in danger of breeding a workforce of high-maintenance namby-pambies."

Those are some of the statements quoted in a HR Magazine report "Beyond Fluffy: Has employee engagement become nothing more than a cliché?" Interesting, aren't they? Because, no matter whether you agree with them or not, they highlight the massive challenge that those of us face who are trying to inspire greater workplace performance. 

Of course you can ignore the first question. If you look upon employee engagement as a project you will inevitably find it is subject to the law of diminishing returns. That is a simple law of life. No, I am sure you will agree that it is the other statements that are more thought-provoking, especially the second one: that it is used as shorthand for a lot of things.

You can hardly dispute that. There are too many definitions of the term to argue otherwise. And that is the reason why you find the kind of schizophrenia in the HR industry implied by the last two statements. You have a concept that is widely endorsed, but yet only superficially supported. How else do you explain the finding that there is no executive sponsorship of employee engagement initiatives in 47.7% of cases? You cannot expect commitment to anything that is so ambiguous that people 'do not get it.'

So, how do you turn the situation around? That is the $64,000 question.

The UK government created The Employee Engagement Task Force to try to find out the answer. It states that "employee engagement is about how you can harness the full capability and potential of your people." But it adds, "That must be willingly offered." This is still pretty generic. It won't go far to resolve the ambiguity that we are talking about.

But it does not have to be "Mission Impossible." Employee ownership – giving your people an equitable ownership stake in the organisation and its results – will go a considerable way towards addressing the rider. People working for themselves has to be the best way to creating a willing worker. Do that, and you have the platform to harness their full capability and potential. It may not be a panacea, but at least you will have a starting point where you are both striving for the same thing. That has to be better than anything you currently have.

Yet it goes even further. It makes managing your people a whole different ballgame. Now employee engagement is no longer a cause! You can concentrate instead on creating a partnership where the common focus is the good of the business. That has to be a win-win. It is no longer fluffy or a cliché.