Employee Engagement in the Workplace

Happy Monday! This is John Garrett coming to you live from Las Cruces, New Mexico with another episode of Green Apple Slices. I’m here speaking to Beasley, Mitchell, accounting firm here, really, really fun group. And I can’t wait to talk with them this afternoon. But before then I had to call in and talk with my partner-in-crime here, Rachel Fisch.

Rachel: Hey, John. How are you?

John: Good.

Rachel: I’ve never been to New Mexico. I got to put that on my list. But I am actually heading to Vegas a little later this week for the first time ever. So I’m kind of excited.

John: Oh, well that’s awesome, very cool.

Rachel: For four very full, full days of meetings. So this should be fun.

John: Four days in Vegas is a long time. So we’re both in the dessert and so that’s even better. But this week, found an article. It’s actually more of an infographic which made me excited.

Rachel: Yeah, the fewer words the better, yeah.

John: Right, exactly. This one was at socialtalent.com and it was Employee Engagement in the Workplace infographic. And a lot of the information came from Company Folders which is a company that does a lot of research and what have you on engagement. And I just love the — I mean it’s just a ton of data coming at you with colors and pictures, which is great.

And the very first one I thought was fantastic, just showing that it doesn’t matter how much money you pay people. Their consistent engagement level is still the same no matter what their salary is.

Rachel: The salary one, yeah. So that was a little surprising. So the whole thing about if I pay you more you’ll stay and you’ll be more productive and happier, right. Yeah, no, no. Salary actually has hardly any — like 2% between the ranges of the difference in the consistently engaged spectrum. So I thought that was fascinating.

John: And actually, the consistently engaged level is 30% whether you’re paid under 36,000 US or over 90. So it’s like, “Wow.”

Rachel: Yeah. I can be rich and miserable. That’s what that tells me.

John: Exactly. So if you get promoted to something over 90,000 US, say no. That’s the answer. Which just goes on to say and I mean this is an old number, but 350 billion dollars that U.S. companies have lost because people are — and I love this — what people are doing at work instead, one of them playing video games.

Rachel: Well, here’s actually a couple that stuck out to me and one was going to unnecessary meetings. I think we talked about this a couple of weeks ago with that gentleman from Tradewind talking about nixing all of their Wednesday meetings. So they waste their time going to unnecessary meetings and the other one was dealing with interruptions. These are two things that everybody deals with in their regular everyday lives. They’re not actively disengaging from anyone. It’s just other people are wasting their time.

John: Right, that’s exactly what it is.

Rachel: Yeah.

John: That’s an excellent point. Yeah, because I mean that’s not my fault that people keep interrupting me.

Rachel: Or booking meetings with me.

John: Totally, yeah. I mean they’re interrupting me to book a meeting, that’s completely unnecessary to do both at once. Yeah. And also just why they’re doing the other things that they’re initiating on their own. I mean just lack of challenging work or they’re working too many hours. So I mean that’s really hard for a manager to be able to balance out like how much work am I suppose to give them to keep them challenged, but not burn them out. Because that’s a small window there I’d imagine to hit.

Rachel: Right. But are they working too many hours because they’re playing videogames during office hours?

John: Oh, see. Why you go ruining it?

Rachel: But then the third one was 32% have no reason to work harder. So I think that if you probably take a look at your compensation plans, you’re not necessarily rewarding productivity. So I think it would be kind of interesting is to actively give your staff incentive to be working harder.

John: Yeah, there you go. That’s a really good idea right there. Because I mean it’s here’s the work to do and if you’re done, then you can leave for the rest of the day. Then I bet people would get it done pretty efficiently.

Rachel: Or I’m going to pay you based on the work that you do and not the number of hours that you sit in your office.

John: Yes, that’s even better. But what are you, crazy?

Rachel: I know, right.

John: But I mean that’s a great idea. It goes on to also say just reasons why people quit their job and what people actually want. And you know, a stable environment and ownership of the work that they’re doing. And like you said, compensation for the work that they’re actually — their output is always nice.

So yeah, I mean that’s pretty much what it is. So you guys can check out the full infographic if you’d like. The link is at greenapplepodcast.com. And you can check it out there. And until then, we have sunburn to not get. So yeah, so have a good rest of the week, Rachel.

Rachel: You too, John. Talk to you later.