Start Engaging Your Employees Or Shoot Yourself In The Foot - It's Your Choice!

An "engaged employee" is one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests.

Have you, like me, grown tired of all the articles reminding us of how unengaged most company's employees have become? 

According to Gallup, U.S. Employee Engagement Stable in October, fully 32.1 percent of employees are engaged.

From my perspective, that's not something to be too excited about, since it means that two-thirds of employees in the U.S. are not feeling engaged and many are actively disengaged.

What about your company? And what about you personally? Would you say that the figures from Gallup are reflective of the situation in your workplace?

If you personally feel that you are engaged in your workplace/role, what is the "secret sauce" to keeping you personally engaged?

Coaching Plays A Key Role In People Engagement

One thing is clear about keeping people engaged, and it's that giving people opportunities to use their skills to do what they do best, providing them with development opportunities and having regular conversations around their aspirations, goals, and professional and personal development are vital keys that managers need to implement in order to help people to feel absorbed and enthusiastic about what they're doing on the job and in the organization as a whole. 

...the day-to-day "engaging" is primarily filtered through the local manager or the ultimate person responsible for coaching each team member's performance and development. (source)

I'd like to invite you to consider the following questions:

• If you're a manager, how is your manager doing when it comes to having regular coaching conversations with you? 
• As a people leader/manager, how are you doing when it comes to having regular coaching conversations with your non-managerial people? 
• If you are not yet a manager, how are the people leaders in your organization doing and/or perceived as doing when it comes to having regular, focused, and productive coaching conversations with their people? 

I really would love to hear from any of you reading this article. Feel free to answer the 3 questions above share your comments on this subject so we all can benefit from your own personal insights and experience. 

Although helping people to feel engaged at work is not the sole responsibility of the individual manager, each manager does play an important role in achieving this goal. 

Much research shows that most employees leave managers, not companies. So, don't shoot yourself in the foot. It's your choice  - you can shoot yourself in the foot (ouch!) or, if you're not doing so already, you can start working at having regular coaching conversations with your people. 

There may be no better and easier way to help people to feel engaged and enthusiastic about what they're doing each day.