Employee Engagement Is Declining - Part 2

Why Is Employee Engagement Declining?

It’s easy to explain the decline in employee engagement by highlighting the obvious – the speed of change, changing customer and employee expectations, the impact of technology, the workforce entering the workplace today. While these are facts that must be addressed, they are simply the realities of the world we live in today. The speed of change is accelerating. That is a fact. Customer and employee expectations are changing. That is also a fact. The workforce entering the workplace today thinks and acts differently that you, the leader. Of course they do. The world they grew up in is different than the world you grew up in.  

But those issues have been in constant change for decades and decades. They are simply facts about the reality we live in today. The real reason that employee engagement is declining is something much deeper and more resistant to change.

Look at the top 3 employee engagement issues from the Gallup Survey:

• Less than 50% of the survey responders were clear about the expectations of them in their role.
• Less than 40% of survey responders felt strongly that someone cares about them as a person.
• Only 30% of respondents felt that someone at work is encouraging their development.

What do all three of these issues have in common?

Leadership

If people are not clear about expectations, that is not their fault. That’s part of the leader’s job. If over 60% of the people in the survey did not feel strongly that someone cared about them as a person, where does that point? Leadership. If 70% of the people in the survey did not feel that someone at work was encouraging their development, where does that point? Leadership.

The problem we face today is NOT the people entering the workforce. Neither is it the speed of change or advancements in technology. The problem is a leadership issue.

We are using outdated leadership & organizational models that do not create the engaged workforce we need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.