Work Engagement

If you gave each of your employees a check for 5 million dollars, how many would show up for work the next day?

Your answer is a window into the basic health and culture of your business.

Sure, it seems absurd that anyone would continue to work without the need for a paycheck… but money alone is not why people go to their jobs every day.

A survey conducted by Make Their Day, an employee motivation firm, and Badgeville, a gamification company, shows the most desired rewards from work are recognition and meaning. Compensation ranked sixth.

This is not surprising. People do not suspend their lives when they are working. They do not become fundamentally different when sitting behind a desk or standing at a machine.

In a modern society, where people’s needs for basic shelter and safety are met, they desire belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization. There’s no reason why work should be excluded from those desires, yet in most organizations, these needs are either disregarded or not taken seriously.

But there’s good reason to do so: Employees who sense belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization on the job experience a condition called “engagement.” Engagement has a profound affect on job satisfaction and creates an even more profound increase in productivity.

Only 30% of people are engaged at work and more often than not, you’ll find them at top-ranked, highly effective organizations. In this series of posts, I will explain more about the steps required to create engagement and in turn, turbo-charge your organization’s success.