Page 77 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

48 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

employees are simply the opposite of engaged employees. How
do disengaged employees act, think, and feel? Without looking at
both sides of the spectrum, it would be impossible to identify the
psychological factors that distinguish engaged from disengaged
employees.
Apathy is the hallmark of the disengaged employee whose
mantra is “I don’t care.” Disengaged employees check their
brains and hearts at the door. They take no pride in their work.
Their primary concern is to figure out how little they can do and
still collect a paycheck. No organization ever achieved great
things with people just going through the motions. More than
just apathetic, these individuals engage in activities that actively
detract from the vitality of your organization. For example, they
may knowingly withhold or give inaccurate information to cus-
tomers and team members. They feel little, if any, sense of con-
nection to their supervisor or organization. In fact, they likely
speak poorly about team members, their supervisor, organiza-
tional leaders, and the organization as a whole. They are toxic to
your culture—the proverbial “rotten apples.”
As you can imagine, such employees are a financial drain
on your organization. In fact, the Gallup Organization has sug-
gested that disengaged employees around the globe cost compa-
nies hundreds of billions of dollars a year. According to a study
published by Gallup in 2009, Germany is plagued by disengaged
employees who are costing their country between 81 billion and
109 billion euros per year in lost productivity. The most disen-
gaged employees are nearly impossible to rescue. Furthermore,
doing so would require tremendous resources better spent on
those with greater promise. Termination of extremely disen-
gaged employees will have an immediate and positive impact on
team vitality and productivity as others see that the offending
team member was finally held accountable and let go.