Employee Engagement: Tools for Analysis, Practice, and Competitive Advantage

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Engaging Engagement

How Engagement Makes a Difference and What Engagement Is

The Business Case for Employee Engagement

Engagement as Psychic Energy: On the Inside

Engagement as Behavioral Energy: How Engagement Looks to Others

How an Engaged Workforce Creates Positive Financial Consequences for Organizations

On High Performance Work Environments: Four Principles for Creating an Engaged Workforce

The Capacity to Engage

The Motivation to Engage

The Freedom to Engage

The Focus of Strategic Engagement

Engagement and Discretionary Effort

Interaction of Cause and Effect
The Remainder of the Book

2. The “Feel and Look” of Employee Engagement

The Feel of Engagement

Urgency

Focus

Intensity

Enthusiasm

Cross-Cultural Issues in Describing the Feelings of Engagement

Summary: The Feel of Engagement

The Look of Engagement: Employee Behavior

Persistence

Proactivity

Role Expansion

Adaptability

Summary: The Look of Engagement

Strategically Aligned Engagement Behavior

On Commitment, Alignment, and Internalization

What About Employee Satisfaction?

Where Does This Take Us?

3. The Key to an Engaged Workforce: An Engagement Culture

What is Organizational Culture?

Creating a Culture for Engagement: How People are Valued in Organizations

The Central Role of a Culture of Trust in Employee Engagement

Trust in Senior Leadership, Trust in Management, and Trust in the System

The Role of Fairness in a Culture of Engagement

Culture Emergence

Learning the Culture

Do the People or the Environment Make the Culture?

The Role of the Work Itself in a Culture of Engagement

The Role of Monetary Incentives in a Culture of Engagement

Does Organizational Success Impact Employee Engagement?

The Role of Culture in Creating Strategic Employee Engagement

How Culture Supports Alignment

Summary

4. Phase 1 of Creating and Executing an Engagement Campaign: Diagnostics and the Engagement Survey

Pre-Survey Diagnostic Activities

Step 1: Conduct the Background Check and Acquire the “Language”

Step 2: Engage Leadership to Define Strategic Engagement and the Supporting Culture

Step 3: Craft the Engagement Messaging

The Engagement Survey

Writing Questions that Focus on the Feelings of Engagement

Writing Questions that Focus on Behavioral Engagement

Writing Generic Behavioral Engagement Survey Questions

Writing Questions that Focus on Creating the Employee Capacity to Engage

Writing Questions that Focus on Whether People Have a Reason to Engage

Writing Questions that Focus on Whether People Feel “Free” to Engage

Summary

5. Phase 2 of Creating and Executing an Engagement Campaign: Action Planning and Intervention

Survey Results Interpretation

Benchmarks

Survey Results Feedback

Feedback at the Executive Level

Feedback at the Managerial Level

Communicating Survey Results Company-Wide

Summary

Preparing the Organization for Taking Action

Commitment for Action

Resources and Tools That Facilitate Action Planning and Change

Variants on the Action Planning Model

How Much Measurable Change is Possible?

Actual Changes That Build and Maintain Engagement

Interventions that Build Confidence and Resiliency

Interventions that Enhance Social Support Networks

Interventions that Renew or Restore Employee Energy

Interventions that Enhance the Motivation to Engage

Interventions that Enhance the Freedom to Engage

Interventions Focused on Process Fairness

Interventions Focused on Outcome Fairness

Interventions Focused on Interactional Fairness

Leadership Behavior and Engagement

Summary

6. Burnout and Disengagement: The Dark Side of Engagement

Disengagement: Early Unmet Expectations at Work

The Nature and Trajectory of Burnout

The Components of Burnout

The Trajectory of Burnout

Is Burnout Inevitable?

Effective Coping With Burnout

Social Support

Autonomy and Job Control

Burnout, Workaholism, and Engagement: Resolution of the Paradox

Job Creep and the Erosion of Trust

Additional Stress Factors and Disengagement

Remedies and Interventions

The Need for Recovery

Other Interventions

Resistance to Change and Engagement: Another Dark Side of Engagement

How Should Engagement Initiatives be Communicated?

Conclusion

7. Talking Points: Introducing or Rethinking Engagement in Your Organization

Notes

Subject Index

Author and Name Index