Page 70 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

What Separates the Best from the Rest? C57

: Universal Engagement Drivers
Retention Risk Factors
Loss of trust and confidence in senior
Caring, competent, and engaging senior
leaders
leaders
The mismatch between the job and the
Job enrichment and professional growth
person
Too little coaching and feedback
Too few growth and advancement Effective managers that align and engage
Job enrichment and professional growth
opportunities
Feeling devalued and unrecognized Being valued for contributions
Stress from overwork and work-life A genuine concern for the well-being of
imbalance employees
The job or workplace was not as An employee may have expected
expected any of the above drivers and not
found or sustained them in the job or
workplace

Although the studies were done independently using data from dif-
ferent sources, they come to remarkably similar conclusions about the
hallmarks of employee engagement. As you see in the table, six of the
negatively stated risk factors on the left are mirror images of the driv-
ers on the right—the six positive contributors to engagement. In other
words, the retention risk factors and engagement drivers are flip sides of
the same coin: the list of things that disengage, deenergize, and drive
people away from a particular workplace are almost the exact inverse of
those that get them excited about being highly productive on the job.
As we have previously defined it, engagement is much more than
employees just showing up or going through the motions. It’s about
employees taking the extra steps necessary to provide great customer
service. It’s about one employee at a time working hard to achieve
the desired result even when a supervisor isn’t hovering. It’s about
the promise of going to work in a job that becomes a true expression
of self and feeling genuine pride when the opportunity arises to tell
someone where you work.
We see a causal sequence in the synthesis of these two studies,
as illustrated in the pyramid in Figure 3.2. We believe that paying