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The Future of Work: David Ducheyne – Otolith

This content was taken from our latest eBook: ‘The Future of Work: Insights from our global Engagement 101 Influencers’. To download the eBook in full. simply click here.

David Ducheyne

Founder

Otolith

Employee Engagement is like the holy grail of HR. Working with nothing but engaged people seems to be a dream. And yet, reported engagement levels remain low. And this provokes some questions.

Why do we seem to be unable to increase overall engagement levels?
What do employee engagement surveys really measure?
To what extent is the link between overall engagement levels and company performance solid, knowing that value is usually created by a small number of employees?
And what about the engagement of the increasing numbers of flexible workers within the ever-thinning walls of the organization?
Does it really make sense to mount programs to increase engagement?

We should remain careful because before we know it, we are focused on increasing the number. Then the number becomes the target. This has perverse effects on behaviour.

We need to take a step back and look at the engagement effort and ask these questions:

Is it not more important to work on avoiding demotivation than on increasing the motivation of people?
Should we not see engagement as the result of many good practices, to begin with leadership?
How can we increase and maintain sustainable productivity (in the broadest sense possible) rather than engagement?
How can we make sure that people can work with at least effort as possible? If we can make it easier for people to be successful in their job, the more likely it becomes they will not be demotivated.

If you want to understand why engagement is important, try and work with someone who is not engaged. But in the search for engagement, we could become a bit more realistic and be tolerant for those who come to work to earn a living without going that extra mile. As long as they are motivated to do what they are supposed to do, things might be not that bad after all. So, let’s make sure they do not get demotivated.

We all know how to do that.

Deadline for the UK & European Awards is October 9, 2019 – Enter here.

This content was taken from our latest eBook: ‘The Future of Work: Insights from our global Engagement 101 Influencers’. To download the eBook in full. simply click here.