Opinion: Why engagement has failed in the workplace

Don Harkey

When we started People Centric, not a lot of people were talking about the power of workplace culture. There was a lot of science around the idea that engaged workers are much more productive than disengaged or toxic workers, but many employers weren’t quick to embrace the concept. When I went to conferences and offered up topics on engagement and culture, I had to pitch the value. 

In more recent years, these concepts have been much more embraced. Culture and engagement are common conference topics, and businesses want more. They want to know how to find an engaged workforce, especially as this workforce costs more than ever before.

With the increased talk about engagement, you would expect engagement levels in the U.S. to rise. In 2012, when People Centric was founded, Gallup measured the U.S. engagement rate at 30%. That means that 70% of the U.S. workforce is either disengaged or “actively disengaged” (Gallup’s term for toxic). That’s an incredible number if you think about it. If you own a company, look at your payroll dollars, take 70% of that number, and know that this money is spent on people who really aren’t giving you their all or who are actively fighting against you. A recent CareerBuilder survey estimates that each toxic employee costs its employer an average of $25,600 per year in turnover costs because nobody likes to work with someone who hates their job. 

Engagement levels did rise a little bit in the U.S. Gallup reports a slow rise from 2012 to 2020 from 30% to 36%. However, in the past two years, we have lost almost all the gains with 2022 engagement numbers dropping to 32%. 

The focus on engagement is failing. 

Even if we were able to sustain the 6% improvement, it’s hard to call that a revolutionary shift. It’s especially hard when you consider that we are hardwired to be engaged at work. Being engaged is our natural state. Most employees start their jobs engaged and something happens to them along the way that makes them care less or want to fight their employer. 

The retail and restaurant industries are especially hard hit. Anyone who shops or eats out can easily feel the difference between an engaged employee and a not-so-engaged employee. 

Our team has been spending a lot of time listening as we talk to both executives and employees about engagement, and we think we see a major problem that might explain our poor progress as a country. The problem is that too many managers and executives think about engagement as an employee problem and not a management problem. Too many employers say, “I’m looking for engaged workers” rather than saying, “I’m looking for ways to engage my workers.” 

The secret to earning employee engagement is deceptively simple. You must engage your employees.

A few years ago, our team stumbled across a Harvard Business Review article that reported that 67% of managers are afraid to talk to their employees. The article wasn’t talking just about hard conversations such as holding someone accountable or sharing bad news. It said that 67% of employers are afraid to talk to their employees about anything. 

At first, our team was surprised, but then it seemed to match what we see when we start working with a new client. One employer shared an internal survey they had conducted that found that only 32% of their employees had received any feedback on their performance “sometime over the last year.” At this company, this meant that 68% of their employees received no feedback over the last year. None. 

When People Centric works with a client to improve their engagement scores, we don’t work as much with the employees as we do with the managers. We look at internal systems that foster relationships between employees, their supervisors and the company. We train managers to not just give performance feedback, but to get to know their people. We create systems where employees can share their dreams, frustrations, and if they desire, their own personal situations. 

In Gallup’s historic Q12 study, one of the greatest predictors of engagement is a yes or no answer to the following question: Does my supervisor care about me as a person?

The next time you meet an engaged employee at a retail store or at a restaurant, pay extra attention to the manager. I’ll bet you’ll see kindness and someone you wouldn’t mind working under. 

It’s time to shift our thinking about culture and engagement. It’s time to put our people at the center of what we do.

Don Harkey is the owner and CEO of People Centric Consulting Group LLC. He can be reached at donharkey@peopleccg.com.