“The most highly engaged organizations do not get that way by accidents; it takes proper execution, hard work, and perseverance.” – Ed O’Boyle and Jim Harter, Gallup
“Under the blazing sun of money, all other values shine palely.”
How many people actively engage with their work? Let’s not ask if they enjoy it, but rather if they are dedicatedenough to put heart and soul into it.
Gallup answered this question in a 2014 global study of employees in 142 countries. It turns out that out of every 10 people in the international workforce:
- Six are disengaged
- Three are actively disengaged; and
- Only one is actively engaged in their work.
Worldwide, the majority of employees largely do not feel aligned with their employers, and simply go through the motions. Organizations are very likely to be mostly made up of such Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF) workers!
It gets worse. A smaller (but still significant) number are unhappy, dissatisfied and destructive, consciously undermining the efforts of others. Gallup terms such people as actively disengaged employees.
On the other hand, only one in 10 come in with an actively engaged, “Thank God It’s Monday!” mindset—and these people are where the passion, commitment and innovation of your organization will come from.
How much does active disengagement cost companies? Gallup has estimated that in the USA alone, such employees cost the entire economy S$450 to $500 billion per year!
As a Singaporean, I was interested to find out how my country fared. The World Economic Forum has ranked Singaporean workers the third most effective in the world in terms of “experience, knowledge, talent and training”—that is, in a technical and professional sense.
But exactly how well and consistently they do this depends in their emotional health, which is a very different matter. Consider these findings by the National Health Promotion Board:
* One out of four Singaporeans felt they were highly stressed in 2013, compared to one out of five in 2012.
* One out of 15 Singaporeans will suffer from depression in their lifetime.
* 60% of Singaporeans have experienced mental fatigue at work.
* 67% have had stress-related illnesses.
* 34% were losing sleep because of work.
Ask any Singaporean, “How are you?” Most will answer, “Very busy,” followed by “very exhausted!”
In the Gallup study, Singaporeans were close to the global average. Out of 10 workers, only one will be engaged—but eight will be disengaged and two actively so. Why?[1]
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One-Dimensional KPIs
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) today are primarily number-driven. It’s about profit, profit, and profit. Board members, shareholders and CEOs measure the success of a company based on year-on-year increasing profits.
“At our quarterly board meetings, I only look at the bottom line, the numbers,” a board member of a large corporation has told me. “That’s all that matter to us and the shareholders.”
Boards and executives have been conditioned to only look at the numbers and determine if they are good enough. “We don’t care what they are producing or how they are producing it, unless there’s a crisis,” he said. “We only care about whether the numbers are up or down. If they’re up, we congratulate the CEO and get him to do more next quarter; if they’re down, he needs to buck up. If he fails and the numbers keep sliding, he’s out.”
No wonder CEOs are incessantly driven to meet the quarter! That is all that matters, and if this continues all the lip service we give to building people up and caring about them does not matter.
It’s easy for those in authority to slip into a numbers-over-people mentality—one that uses people as tools to get the numbers they want. They aren’t human beings with needs, goals and dreams, but small cogs in a vast, profit-driven machine.
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Employees work primarily for money
Because numbers are king, CEOs push senior management to ensure productivity. The results must be cheaper, better and as fast as possible, so that profit is maximized and cost is minimized.
Our suppliers are chosen based on the lowest bid; and we force managers to keep their team headcounts as low as possible. Employees are made to multi-task and do many different jobs for the same pay (or better still, lower pay). We pressure them to work overtime, do more and take less rest.
The result: Employees are browning out and burning out faster.
Employees then become more calculative and transactional. They are not stupid; they see that employers are only interested in their productivity and not their welfare. They see that their managers are more concerned about them doing more for less pay, and not their personal or family life. They realize that their bosses only reward them based on how they perform and what they can produce—so that the numbers can be raised.
If your employees are disengaged, there’s a good chance that they are working for money, not for you. If another organization offers them more, off they go—because their managers have trained them to believe that their worth is based only on how they perform.
I’ve heard this first-hand. One senior leader in a global organization shared this with me:
John, I can’t help it. The CEO pushes us to produce for less. I reward only those who can do that. I squeeze every drop of blood and sweat out of them, especially the newer, younger and hungrier ones.
I use an extreme carrot and stick method—those who perform get big bonuses and all of us are happy. I show those who don’t perform the door.
After a few years, those young and hungry ones also burn out. Then I must discard them, because they’re now no use to the organization or me; and I move on to a new group. That’s how I survive in today’s world, and I have no choice.
Simon Sinek is right on when he says, “Great leaders sacrifice their numbers for people. Poor leaders sacrifice people for their numbers.”[2]
John Ng
References:
[1] Gallup: State of The Global Workplace. 2013. Gallup Headquarters. Washington D.C., USA. 2014.
[2] Quoted in Will Yakowicz, “Simon Sinek on Great Leaders,” Inc Magazine, August 19, 2013, at http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz-simon-sinek-why-business-leaders-need-to-eat-last.html.