While employee engagement has somewhat improved after a COVID-19 pandemic slump, employees continue to feel disconnected from employers’ missions.
This sense of connection is often what inspires employees to go above and beyond their basic job demands, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report.
If you don’t feel meaningfully connected at work, it’s important to understand why disengagement happens and what to do about it.
What causes disengagement?
Employee engagement is a complex issue, and employees become disengaged at work for many reasons. “A key reason employees become disengaged is that they do not feel connected to either their co-workers, manager or the organization itself,” says Miriam Connaughton, chief people and experience officer at intranet platform Simpplr. “Another huge frustration is when they feel a lack of purpose and can’t see how what they do makes a difference.”
Besides connection and purpose, leadership transparency and high-quality communication, which can facilitate staff’s trust in leadership, are critical, Connaughton says.
Other important factors that can lead to disengagement are when employees feel as if they aren’t heard and that their opinions don’t count, and when workers feel that their hard work and accomplishments go unnoticed or unappreciated by their company or manager.
All of these challenges are exacerbated by the increasing diversity of today’s work models, according to Connaughton. The configurations of remote workers have continued to morph and expand, including “deskless” workers who aren’t tied to a single location and hybrid workers who spend some time at home and some in the office. Connaughton notes that the more work model types that organizations have to think about, the more challenging it is to figure out how to engage with people and have them engage with each other.
Finally, many organizations face digital frustration that adds to engagement challenges, with employees being forced to hop across too many apps to find information, answers to questions or get things done. “It’s increasingly hard for people to feel connected,” Connaughton says. “At the same time, employee-facing technologies organizations use to communicate with, engage and support employees have not kept pace with these demands.”
Improving engagement
To help solve these engagement challenges, Connaughton has identified what she refers to as the “three circles of employee engagement.” These are the employee-manager dynamic, co-worker interactions and organizational connection.
Employee-manager dynamic
Because the relationship between an employee and their manager is the crucial foundation on which an employee’s engagement is built, this relationship is central to how workers navigate their professional journey at any organization. “When a manager and their team member foster a trusted relationship, characterized by candid exchanges, mutual respect and an understanding of how their work aligns to the organization’s purpose, it significantly elevates motivation to contribute and personal sense of well-being and feeling valued,” Connaughton says.
On the flip side, a negative manager-employee relationship can tank engagement by leading to confusion, disillusionment, decreased motivation and worsened well-being. In fact, a recent survey from The Workforce Institute at UKG found that managers impact employees’ mental health more than doctors or therapists do.
With this in mind, managers should do what they can to strengthen their bonds with their team members, whether through offering more flexibility, working on trust and transparency, or expressing gratitude.
Co-worker interactions
Positive co-worker interactions can improve engagement. In contrast, loneliness and isolation are major drivers of employees voluntarily resigning.
One element that plays a consequential role in co-worker interactions is an organization’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, commonly called DEI. Companies should focus their efforts on improving DEI to improve connections between co-workers. In fact, McKinsey has found that DEI in the workplace significantly impacts coworker relationships by fostering a culture of respect, understanding and collaboration.
“DEI encourages an environment where diverse perspectives are valued, leading to more innovative problem-solving and decision-making,” Connaughton says. “By promoting equity and inclusion, organizations can create a sense of belonging among employees, reducing conflicts and improving teamwork. An inclusive culture further enhances employee engagement and satisfaction, contributing to a more cohesive and productive work environment.”
Organizational connection
The third leg of the stool is employees’ relationships with their organization as a whole, or the employee experience. Connaughton describes this as “what it feels like to move through the organization.”
“By definition, employee experience is a distributed phenomenon that is influenced by all aspects of the organization — its strategy, processes, technology, policies, culture and more,” she says. “This is one of the reasons it’s so difficult to consistently deliver great (employee experience).”
One challenge to delivering a top employee experience is inconsistency. “When there’s a gap between how the intended employee experience is defined (the espoused experience) and the actual day-to-day employee experience, this discrepancy leads to increased frustration, decreased performance and a rise in disengagement among employees,” she says.
Tech tools
While there’s no single solution to improving employee experience and seeing a corresponding bump in engagement, one area to focus on is technology that can help organizations better understand employees.
Connaughton notes that tools like employee feedback platforms, engagement surveys, analytics software and communication tools can provide insights into employee sentiment, enable real-time feedback, foster collaboration and facilitate recognition.
“By leveraging these technologies, organizations can create a more connected, transparent and responsive workplace, thereby improving overall workplace dynamics,” she says. “And above all, we need to ensure that the technology we use isn’t added to the frustration factors. Seeking technologies that can incorporate all these features in one place, and integrate seamlessly with other systems where needed, is where we’re headed.”
How to fight disengagement as an employee
Employees shouldn’t be passive players in all of this, according to Connaughton. “How each of us experiences our workplace is, in part, driven by our intrinsic motivation and what else is going on in our lives, and how we choose to interact with the challenges and opportunities around us,” she says. “We also need to be self-aware and attuned to how our engagement ebbs and flows, and what impacts it.”
One way to boost engagement as an employee includes actively engaging in company processes designed to help you grow and develop, or in processes that determine how you’re rewarded. “Take advantage of programs available to support your learning and well-being,” she says. “If we work in an organization that affords us the psychological safety to share ideas and concerns with our managers, speak up, and try to improve things for ourselves and perhaps others, too.”
Sometimes, a change in role, such as working with a new team or on a new project, can stimulate your engagement. Connaughton notes that if your engagement is consistently low and you can’t see a way to change it, it may be a sign that you’re ready to move on.
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Here’s Why You Feel Disengaged at Work — and How to Fix It originally appeared on usnews.com
