Worker Engagement

I was talking to a client a couple of weeks ago about worker engagement within organizations.  He was sharing with me some startling facts based on a recent Gallup poll.  So I have to wonder “where do you believe you fit on engagement at work?”

What does it mean to be engaged at work?  Engaged workers are fully involved in and enthusiastic about their work.  Engagement is related to better performance, greater productivity and a tendency to be proactive regarding issues.  Kahn (1990) defined personal engagement as the….”harnessing of organization member’s selves to their work roles:  in engagement people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, emotionally and mentally during role performances”.

One school of thought suggests that work engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption.  Vigor is characterized by high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one’s work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties; dedication by being strongly involved in one’s work, and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge; and absorption by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one’s work, whereby time passes quickly and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work.

The main drivers of work engagement are identified in two key variable sets:

1. Job Resources:  This includes things such as social support from coworkers and from one’s supervisor, performance feedback, coaching, job control, task variety, opportunities for learning and training.

1. Personal Resources:  This includes things such as optimism, self-efficacy and resilience.  Psychological capital seems to be related to work engagement.

So here are the startling facts from the Gallup poll regarding workers in the USA:

29% are engaged

54% are not engaged

18% are actively disengaged

So I ask you again, “Where do you believe you fit on engagement at work?”

“Careers, like rockets, don’t always take off on schedule.  The key is to keep working the engines.”  –  Gary Sinise