The state of employee engagement today might be best described by using the hiking term “false summit.” That’s the disappointment one feels when reaching the crest of a ridge, only to discover that the real summit looms high above. The good news is that despite the apparent lack of progress, the path to significant improvement in employee engagement remains, as more and more executives have a greater appreciation of the role of engaged people.
The Question Is Always How?
In decades of working with clients in the incentive rewards and recognition industry, we know the easiest way to begin a strategic connection between employees and the engagement needed to deliver your brand promises is to implement the principles contained in the employee behavior model. Executives, especially in HR are aware of the principles that great psychologists such as Watson, Skinner, Maslow and Thorndyke taught. But it seems that the traditional thinking surrounding behavior has been set aside in favor of new approaches of the consultants of today that permeate the C-Suite. Through decades of implementing successful employee award systems that followed the simple approach of the behavior model, we know you can produce results.
Employee Recognition Will Produce Results
If you design and implement the right employee award system you will definitely engage employees. You don’t have to make it any more complicated than that.
The sense of a false summit comes from the fact that the industry is replete with gurus delivering leadership advice, various performance apps, wellness programs, feedback surveys, all types of rewards and recognition items, and other measures to engage employees. HR and related technology trade shows and conferences feature education topics and exhibits on all manner of ways to engage employees—and yet employee engagement levels remain stuck well below 50%. Why?
People come to work each day because you’ve provided a contract of income to get them there. But this contract doesn’t necessarily motivate them to perform at their highest level once they are there. That’s where the connection to improved performance by implementing a well-structured reward and recognition system should begin.
Where Have All the Experts Gone?
The Reward and Recognition Industry began employee engagement long before it was ever titled that. The successful incentive rewards houses made large investments in expertise in all the facets of the behavior model, and gave that expertise away in order sell their commodities of merchandise and travel. Those companies became the floor upon which the entire recognition and reward business was built. But the industry has changed, the new companies didn’t bring the expertise and now merely sell the rewards as consequences to behavior without regard to the other behavior pieces. Studies from the Incentive Research Foundation clearly show that the vast majority of companies never look at their award supplier as someone who can assist them in building a strategic connection with their employees. We believe that’s the first place you should look.
Some Problems Still Exist
If you want to break the 50% engagement barrier, you need to think in terms of systems not silos. When you entertain experts, who remain firmly planted in their own curriculum you will not be able to connect all the behavioral dots. When was the last time you had a training company present measurement and feedback coupled with rewards as part of their solution? When was the last time you had a technology company present an app or IT solution which included communications, feedback analysis and rewards necessary to make it effective? When was the last time you had a recognition or awards salesperson concerned about anything other than how many awards you needed and when?
There is no
one cure-all for employee engagement. It
has so many facets and levels that it is difficult for any company to
achieve. The ones that have it didn’t
get there overnight, and are constantly tweaking the pieces. We’ve watched companies grapple with how to
begin and spend countless hours arguing over the important pieces that make up
the foundation and how to start. If you
want to delve into the world of employee engagement, look through the lens of
the behavior model and you’ll find the best way to build it for yourself. You’ll
know what pieces you already have, which ones you do well and which ones are
missing, and if they are working in unison to produce your desired results.
