Contented Cows Still Give Better Milk, Revised and Expanded: The Plain Truth about Employee Engagement and Your Bottom Line by Bill Catlette & Richard Hadden

Author:Bill Catlette & Richard Hadden [Catlette, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
Published: 2012-05-30T14:00:00+00:00

Employee Engagement in a Headwind

Workers, jobs, and economic output weren’t the only victims of the 2007–2009 great recession. Employee engagement fared poorly too. Workers felt squeezed by organizations struggling to survive, and leaders too often failed to realize that the only way to survive a tough economy is by attaining every employee’s full, willing engagement.

A 2009 study by nonprofit business research group the Conference Board reported that only 45 percent of workers surveyed claimed to be satisfied in their jobs, down from 61 percent in 1987.2 Unlike the economy, this downward trend has been constant, not cyclical. Just like gravity, job satisfaction has gone but one way of late: down.

Global consulting firm Mercer conducted a 2011 study whose report carried the headline “Post Recession Environment Yields Increasingly Disengaged Workforce.” The study reported that 32 percent of employees polled were “seriously considering leaving” their jobs, up from 23 percent in 2005. An additional 21 percent said they had a negative view of their employer and had largely checked out of their job, even if they weren’t looking for another one.3 Simple math yields the discomforting revelation that, based on this study, more than half the workforce has unplugged and taken their game home, while still taking up space, precious oxygen . . . and a paycheck. British consultancy Reabur.com reported in the same year that 31 percent of U.K. workers were “unhappy” in their jobs, and 7 percent went so far as to say they “hated” them.4

Westport, Connecticu–based psychologist Hendrie Weisinger offers the following list of what gets the American worker hot under the proverbial collar, be it of the white or blue variety. We suspect that these items (listed in no particular order) needn’t be confined to the American workforce:

1. Harassment, sexual or otherwise

2. Favoritism of one employee over another

3. Insensitivity of managers

4. Depersonalization of the workplace, causing employees to feel as if they’re just numbers

5. Unfair performance appraisals

6. Lack of resources, including everything from support staff to corporate credit cards

7. Lack of adequate training

8. Lack of teamwork

9. Withdrawal of earned benefits

10. Lack or violation of trust

11. Poor communication

12. Absentee bosses

Although aggrieved employees may appear to do nothing about the situation on the surface, the fact remains that people really don’t forget about their perceived injustices. Rather, they file them away and accumulate others until they reach a breaking point—at which time they escalate their demand for justice.

All too often, an employee who has moved on to a more overt plan of action will find someone else to help them with the problem. Although the number of people turning to unions to accomplish this has steadily declined over the past 30 years, we can’t count organized labor out.

A 2011 attempt by Wisconsin’s newly inaugurated governor Scott Walker to sharply curtail the collective bargaining rights of most of the state’s public sector unions drew thousands of protesters to the capitol in Madison for weeks. The fury over this issue, along with other state employee concessions and budget actions, was not about to go away.

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