The Engagement Gap

Forget the generation gap for a minute; let's talk about the engagement gap. Towers Perrin recently conducted a survey of over 90,000 employees in 18 countries. Their findings are less than shocking.

21 percent of employees are engaged in their work, and only 38 percent are partly to fully engaged. Towers Perrin calls this the "engagement gap." According to the article from Market Watch, the engagement gap is, "the gap between the discretionary effort companies need and people actually want to invest and companies' effectiveness in channeling this effort to enhance performance."

That's human resource jargon for "If employees are not engaged, they will not perform!"

While this seems like common sense, the real value of this survey is its ability to quantitatively relate this information to a company's bottom line. The article goes on to say,

Firms with the highest percentage of engaged employees collectively increased operating income 19 percent and earnings per share 28 percent year to year. Those companies with the lowest percentage of engaged employees showed year-to-year declines of 33 percent in operating income and 11 percent in earnings per share.

In a related study over a longer time horizon (three years), the firms with the highest levels of employee engagement achieved a 3.7 percent increase in operating margins, while those with the lowest levels of engagement suffered a drop of 2 percent.

This link to a company's bottom line is a huge breakthrough in the area of HR and talent management. For years, "people issues" have been pushed to the background due to a lack of quantifiable financial effects. I can't tell you how excited I am to see this slowly changing.

People like my mother have been pushing this emphasis on people for years. Finally, they have charts and stats to show the CEO!

I am not an HR expert by any means, but I truly believe the best thing a company can do to engage their employees, especially young employees, is to give them greater visibility across the organization. Employees at the bottom of the ladder need to know where they fit in, and how their work helps the company overall. All it takes is a quick meeting and a couple PowerPoint slides. Try it. You'll be amazed at the response.

It is my hope that the single greatest change that will take place in the workplace as Gen-Y climbs and eventually commands the corporate ladder, is a new found focus on employee engagement, above ALL else. Because, after all, what could be more important to a company's bottom line then its employees?