Dilemma of an Overwhelmed Employee- Why Companies Lack in Workforce Engagement

Technology and the day-to-day dealing with the pool of information, text messages, tweets, emails, conference calls and meetings have turned each and every one of us into an “overwhelmed” employee. Every company is facing this issue and coping with it as a challenge, in order to improve the individual productivity and overall company performance. However, they still seem to be struggling at it.

This is a worldwide issue and according to a Gallup research, surprisingly, only 13% of the employees are actively engaged at work and employees twice as that stat, are disengaged with their work and spread the negativity among other co-workers. In other words, one in eight employees is found to be seriously committed to their jobs and most likely to make positive contribution to their companies.

Let’s go through some statistics that makes the HR and business leaders concerned:

When the companies were asked to evaluate their overall performance, they lacked in performance management practices, which made it pretty evident that the entire performance management is broken.

“Only 6% of the companies believe that their performance managing system is worth their time while 58% called their processes “weak”. North American companies are comparatively 20% worse than that of the entire world. “

Changes in Work Ethos:

The studies conclude and unite to a point that the workers these days want something different. They want more. They’ve become more demanding with the passage of time that they seek meaningful work with the expectations of more rewards and incentives from their employers. Just like one HR manager said, “Today, employees don’t want a career, they want an experience.”

According to the stats, nearly 40% of the US workforce works part time and as Millennials are overtaking the Baby boomers, they are giving them a hard time finding jobs. Millennials are looking for creative jobs and want to work for the startups, social media savvy agencies or start their own small businesses. Everybody wants easier work with lesser pressure and more rewards.

Furthermore, 26% of the US workforce is most likely to switch their jobs and those employees are the most motivated and skilled people. The companies need to stop using the term “retain” for their employees because no employer can now retain anyone. What they have to do is continuously attract their own people and let them stay on their own. Businesses can get feedback from employees with engagement surveys that can be run in their HR software. Creating a magnetic workplace is what will make your people stay in the company.

Overwhelmed Employee:

The research tells us that 2/3 of the employees feel that they are “overwhelmed.” The concept of maintaining a work-life balance exists no more. Thanks to the technology and the breakdown of all communication barriers that has made lives absolutely stressful yet convenient.

According to the research, people check their cellphones almost 150 times per day which ends up causing stress, distraction and evident decline in productivity level. And that’s not all; researchers have also noticed that a business professional can only focus at work related task for maximum 7 minutes and after that they switch windows to check their personal social media profiles.

Many Human Resource leaders take this issue as an urgent challenge while only less than 10% of the organizations know how to deal with it. This problem doesn’t only affect the employee and the company but also the families too.

Redefining “Engagement”:

The old fashioned meaning of the engagement needs to be redefined with the existing culture and the behaviors of employees. There is a set of elements that drives a particular workforce and by improving them we can gauge workforce engagement in a better way. They are:

• The work itself
• Learning and growing capability
• Environment of the management
• Flexibility at workplace
• True leadership

Best work places aren’t those that offer free lunches or games, but the ones that have a “soul” and that is what makes the workplace and the work more exciting. Heavy investment in management and leadership skills is what matters the most in bringing the long term engagement between the employer and the employee.

Workforce Engagement- A Big Deal:

If you’re a business leader or a CEO of any organization, your core and only concern should be employees’ commitment towards the work and their internal engagement with their coworkers.

You need to streamline your priorities and must make workforce engagement the top priority. This could be done by improving the standards of your work, having a flexible attitude towards change, providing better coaching and effective leadership skills to make an ever lasting impact at your workplace.