In a follow-up book to The Four-Hour WorkWeek, Tim Ferriss wrote one called The Four-Hour Chef.

In it, Ferriss explains that he was less interested in why people pick up cookbooks, than why they put them down.

That’s a profound observation.

It’s one that you need to consider when it comes to employee engagement.

You see, if you don’t know why employees become disengaged, then you’ll never figure out how to re-engage them.

Instead, you’ll end up trying all sorts of quirky suggestions such as assigning a company value to a different employee each week, and then asking him or her to exemplify it, or having “themed” office days, or taking pictures of people when they are at their most awkward and then pinning them to your organization’s bulletin board, or playing the “happiness at work” game.

Believe it or not, this kind of advice has been promulgated; and it’s rubbish.

Why?

Because it only works in certain organizational cultures.

If your company consists primarily of 20-somethings, then funny games and pictures of people doing silly things can be funny; but you have to recognize that even among employees of that age, not everyone will be convinced.

Same thing is true of outward-bound-team-building. Those who love to get wet and play in the mud will sign-up for it again, given the chance. Those who hate it will resist you at every step.

Some will be embarrassed. Others will think that these things are corny, and still others will wonder what on earthy you think you’re playing at.

If you want to re-engage people, then you have to find out how they got disengaged in the first place.

 

Consider this: The majority of people in your organization share two things.

First, they are bored. They are so bored that they can’t concentrate on their work. Their minds wander all over the place. The acutely aware that no matter what their age or even their qualifications, that a determined 15-year old could probably do the same thing.

Some of them are so bored that they have trouble staying awake.

The yawns may be from late nights, but more likely they’re because they’re struggling to keep their brains awake.

Boring, boring, boring.

That’s what most work for most people is like.

Why, for instance, do you think that people like to listen to their music via earbuds or headphones?

It’s because it’s more interesting than the work you have given them to do.

Have you ever thought about that?

Much of what we call work today is mind-numbing. You might as well be breaking rocks. That’s how much concentration is required.

The other thing is that people are scared. A better term would be anxious.

Now in this country, you’re less likely to lose your job on the whim of your boss than you are perhaps in America; but you can be afraid, or anxious, that if you don’t lick this boot, or cheat, or lie (on your CV), for example, then you won’t get the job or the promotion that you want.

Think about that.

How can you expect to engage, or re-engage, people who are bored and anxious?

Unless and until you deal with those things, the rest of it won’t make a bit of difference.

If anything, it will make matters worse.

It may surprise you to know that this was studied in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

It wasn’t called employee engagement then, but it amounted to the same thing.

It was called job satisfaction.

People who were satisfied with work, liked their jobs or were happy with them worked in organizations where certain things occurred; and those who had no job satisfaction also shared experiences in their organizations.

The interesting thing is that what satisfied employees in the ‘50s and ‘60s have also continued to satisfy them ever since.

In other words, those who were satisfied were engaged.

 

Would you like to know how to re-engage your employees?

These factors originated with someone called Frederick Herzberg. There has been a lot of research in the years following his work. Many have attempted to disprove his findings; and to be fair, with some success because of the changing economic climate.

Even so, there is much to be learned by revisiting at least some of what he discovered.

The boredom that people experience today, the lack of job satisfaction, stems from two things.

The first is a failure to provide that which motivates, and the second is the continued meddling the organizations do in things that people expect to get.

Let’s look at the first category.

 

What motivates people? What makes them look forward to going to work? What makes them want to arrive early or stay late?

Fear only works in the short-term. Patton once said that he wanted his troops to be more afraid of him than they were of the enemy.

Thing is, you’re not in a war.

One of the things that gets people excited about their work is the challenge of doing it.

Many jobs today require an undergraduate degree just to qualify for the interview. But how many of them actually use what they’ve learned in the job you’ve given them?

How many of them could have learned what you wanted them to learn when they arrived for the first day?

And how many of them have you told that what they learned at university doesn’t matter? If you tell people that, then you’re demotivating them. They might as well pack their things and go home until you’re transferred.

They aren’t the problem. You are.

Employees want to be given something that they can sink their teeth into.

They want to be able to grow.

And that’s one of Herzberg’s factors: The opportunity to achieve.

If the jobs that your employees do don’t provide this, then once they get the hang of what they’re doing, they’ll be bored.

And here’s something that you need to tape to your wall.

The smartest people learn fast.

If you hire for talent, and nearly everyone does, then you especially have to be on the ball because those who are the most talented will master what you’ve given them by lunchtime.

 

What’s another of Herzberg’s satisfaction factors?

A second one is that people like to be recognized for what they achieve.

What usually happens?

The managers steal the show.

They use the royal “we”, though everyone knows that that’s just so that they can take the credit for the results.

The same people who take the kudos when they don’t deserve them are also quick to blame others when things go wrong. Passing the buck also demotivates.

 

A third factor that goes right along with these two is that people like to be promoted.

Granted; there are those who expect to be promoted very quickly – more so than is even reasonable; but guess where they got that idea?

Have you ever heard of fast-tracking someone?

There are more people who would like to be fast-tracked, than tracks for them to be fast-tracked on.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that organizational hierarchies are much flatter today than they once were.

There may not be a position to be promoted into.

That means you have to be creative. It doesn’t mean that you create a position title that sounds grand and means nothing.

Employees will spot a fake a mile away.

Fakes don’t re-engage anyone.

What you have to do is give them a new job title, add responsibility, and give them a pay rise that’s commensurate with it.

That’s how someone grows in the job.

 

What are some ways that managers disengage people?

One is to fail to pay people appropriately for the work they do.

Not too long ago, there were moans and groans about the requirement to pay people a living wage.

Seriously?

You think that it’s okay to pay people less than what they need to live.

Here’s a word for your vocabulary: E-X-P-L-O-I-T-A-T-I-O-N.

There’s no question that people need to earn what they’re paid; but if they aren’t doing enough, then give them more work.

That should be plain as a pikestaff.

 

Here’s another one.

What’s it like to work for you?

Are you approachable?

Are you a nice person to talk to?

Do you have time for your employees?

Do you talk to them?

Do you take an interest in what interests them?

If you answered, “No” to any of those, then the reason that people are disengaged is because of you.

 

People who dislike their supervisors aren’t satisfied with their jobs. And you know what? It’s a reasonable expectation to have a nice person to work for.

Being nice isn’t difficult.

Showing respect for others isn’t hard. It’s common courtesy.

 

Here’s a third reason why employees are disengaged.

They dislike the people they work with.

Now, you can please everyone. That’s a given.

But, if there are people in your organization who are poisoning the attitudes of everyone else, then you need to help them to find another job.

By leaving them where they are, you’re disengaging everyone else.

So, you now have six things to think about: Three that encourage re-engagement and three that disengage people.

There are more.

Google Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory and you can read about them, too.

Remember that the key to re-engagement lies in identifying what has caused or is causing disengagement.

If you fix what’s wrong and then do what’s right, your employees will re-engage with you.

 

If you consider resolving disengagement or presenteeism is important for your organisation, – then let’s talk