Page 23 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

10B RE-ENGAGE

How many of the actions above do you display on a consistent ba-
sis? Are you as engaged as you would like to be? If you are, good for
you and your employer. If not, why not?

Can a Person Be Too Engaged?
We believe full engagement is always of benefit to the individual and
the employer. But as we know, a strength carried to an extreme can
quickly become a weakness. Workaholism is not engagement. Em-
ployees who constantly push themselves hard to perform well may
become burned out. We all need periods of “rejuvenative disengage-
ment” (or downtime) in the form of regular breaks, free evenings and
weekends for rest and recreation, and periodic vacations.
Employers also need to guard against taking undue advantage of
a highly engaged employee’s willingness to take on more work. The
“job creep” phenomenon results when managers load up dependable
high performers with so much work that opportunities for downtime
become less and less available. At the same time, these same manag-
ers, instead of confronting their poor performers, choose to give them
fewer assignments, which further undermines the engagement of
top performers who see and experience the injustice of the situation.
This is a recipe for disengagement and turnover of our most valued
talent.

How Do We Know an Engaged Employee When We Hear One?
Survey findings reveal that engaged employees tend to have better
things to say about their workplaces than employees who are not
engaged. Here are a few illustrative comments from some of the em-
ployees surveyed from the winning companies featured in this book:

: “I genuinely enjoy working for this company. I look forward to
coming in to work every day.”
: “I love it here—I love contributing to make it a better place and
knowing what I do is important. I love putting the needs of the