Engaged vs. Disengaged Workers
How many in your office are either unhappy, a bit slack,
or being a bit disruptive?
It would be about one in five of your colleagues who are
not pulling their weight or who are what the jargonists would
call "actively disengaged" people at work.
Everyone of them around your office means that someone has
to pick up the extra workload, or has to be extra nice to
customers or even being extra positive to overcome the bad
vibes those who don't really want to be there give off.
That is, of course, on the personal level. Nationwide official
estimates have put the cost of active disengagement in the
workplace at around $31.5 billion a year to Australia.
That massive figure is arrived at by working out the drop
in production from disinterested people, the loss of customers
who are sick of slack service, rudeness or boredom when they
ask for assistance.
It does not include sickies and, how about this - our 123,500
public servants take 30 per cent more sickies than those of
us in the private sector, with 5 per cent being away at any
particular moment. That sort of total disengagement - up to
1.4 million days worth - costs us just under $1billion a year.
One of the major costs of actively disengaged workers is
the fact that a third of them will leave the job they have
been trained to do to find something better. This means the
employer has to advertise the position, spend time looking
for a replacement and then retrain. More time and money gone.
A more frightening statistic from the Gallup poll was that
only 18 per cent of Australian workers are "actively
engaged" while in their workplace. These "good-guy
employees" are the ones who will do the hard yards and
make that extra effort to do a job.
So what turns workers off?
Research has shown that engaged workers are highly productive
and give good service to your customers. Many disengaged employees
have become that way due to poor management practice, being
treated badly, getting little feedback or cooperation, being
overly criticised, not having their performance reviews often
enough, or having too many, and not being rewarded for good
work. The list goes on!
Career pathways are important for bosses to remember, making
sure that workers feel appreciated and, when it's due, get
praised for working hard.
Figures show those in charge of people have drastically cut
disengagement by concentrating on an employees good points.
A Gallup poll showed a 39 percentage point difference between
the reaction to good managers (43% engaged to 4% disengaged).
On the other hand managers who focus on the negative traits
have only a 9% difference (33% to 24%).
Mind you, no feedback at all is the worst situation and leads
to a massive swing the other way. Poor communicators cost
companies big time with workforces having a 2% engaged level
and a whopping 43% actively disengaged.
Perhaps there are so many bad workers around as many
people like to think, but maybe it's time managers had a good
hard look at the way they deal with people!
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