Dec 1, 2022
The Employee Engagement Adrenaline Shot
On their first day of working for your company, employees are already engaged.
They are excited to be there and look forward to making an impact and being part of the team.
But slowly, those happy, engaged employees turn into unhappy employees who are disengaged from their work.
That’s about the point the organization sends out an employee engagement survey. And when the less-than-stellar results come back, the company introduces new perks. Maybe free food or casual Fridays will help employees be more engaged.
Engagement temporarily improves before dropping off again, and the cycle repeats.
Too many companies are in the endless loop of low engagement scores, an adrenaline shot of a new perk, engagement scores going up, and the adrenaline shot wearing off.
How do you break out of this cycle? By focusing more on employee experience than employee engagement.
Employee engagement perks may seem exciting to employees at first. However, eventually the newness wears off, and employees realize they are still working for the same company with the same internal struggles. On the other hand, employee experience aims to correct and change core workplace practices in three areas: culture, technology, and physical space. Instead of just giving an adrenaline shot to boost engagement scores, employee experience digs deeper to make lasting changes.
Are you stuck in the employee engagement cycle? Stop thinking of engagement as an adrenaline shot and get to the root of the problem.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of speaking and working with some of the world’s top leaders. Here are 15 of the best leadership lessons that I learned from the CEOs of organizations like Netflix, Honeywell, Volvo, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and others. I hope they inspire you and give you things you can try in your work and life. Get the PDF here.
