Are You Engaged in Your Job?(2/2)
Racing without a plan can mean a run of bad luck

Drivers of engagement

What makes for an engaged employee? It's not necessarily pay. While the level of pay is important, it's not among the top 10 drivers of engagement, Gebauer said. Companies should survey their work force, much as they might study their cunstomers, to assess what employees are seeking.

The top 10 drivers of employee engagement across all 19 countries are a mixed bag that includes both the behavior and actions of senior management and individuals' own actions and abilities:

Senior management sincerely interested in employee well-being
Improved one's skills and capabilities over the last year
Organization's reputation for social responsibility
Input into decision making in my department
Organization quickly resolves customer concerns
Set high personal standards
Have excellent career advancement opportunities
Enjoy challenging work assignments that broaden skills
Good relationship with supervisor
Organization encourages innovative thinking

Many employees "are looking for a greater demonstration of senior management's interest in their day-to-day work," Gebauer said.

Senior management's interest in employees can be expressed in a number of ways, "including organizations' willingness to help employees balance work and activities outside of work, to sponsor competitive benefit programs, and to focus on career development and training."
The study's findings refute other studies that find workers' immediate supervisors are most important to employees' sense of well-being.
"It's not to say the manager isn't important, but imagine the best manager in the world working in an organization that doesn't have a good performance-management system, doesn't have good advancement opportunities," Gebauer said.

"How is that manager going to help the employee navigate through an organization that is actually not working so well?"

Vocabulary Focus

driver (n) ---something that provides motivation to achieve things
mixed bag (idiom) ---a combination of different things or different types of people
refute (v) ---to say or prove that a statement or opinion is wrong or false
navigate (v) ---to find your way safely and carefully through something that might be difficult