An Engaged Workforce

Ruth Smith ponders whether An Engaged Workforce is ... an unrealistic ideal in the current business climate?

... Polling 23,600 directors, managers, and employees, they found that employee engagement is seen as one of the top three factors that drive an organisation's success (it ranks higher than strategy) and 75% of board members believe that it improves bottom-line performance. In these times, when the news is full of redundancies (layoffs), re-organisations, and failing businesses, I’m not sure if employee engagement is high on the business agenda.

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Later on, she muses:

In my work I have seen pockets of excellence where employee engagement seems to be occurring, and many places where it is obviously not! I have been asking questions about what is happening where engagement is prevalent. A pattern appears to be taking shape in the responses I get; engagement is more likely to occur when mangers purposefully include, and share power with, people within the organisation, co-creating a way of working together with their teams. There is a sense that the diverse range of people within the workplace community (not just the managers and leaders) are involved in, and feel accountable for, finding the solutions that are right for them, the business, and the future

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Power-sharing does not address the fundamental tenet of Capitalism: the owners of capital make the investment decisions. Power-sharing in this context is merely consultation before a decision is made.

The only thing we can hope for from this evolution in management thinking is the workers may gain in consciousness about their true power in the productive process, especially as other avenues are closed off (strikes, etc).

A truly engaged workforce is one that runs the workplace and employs capital as it sees fit.