Three Keys to Unlock Employee Engagement
Organizational culture is not about policies and procedures. It’s how employees experience the workplace. It represents how employees perform, think, and feel. Culture is the people.
Culture and Employee Engagement
According to Quantum Workplace, culture is a driving factor behind employee engagement. Low engagement is an indicator the organization's culture needs a boost.
Workplace culture includes 10 building blocks that encompass how employees do things, how they think, and feel within the organization. Employee engagement illustrates how employees interact with and experience culture. One way to better understand this correlation is to explore what quantifies employee engagement. Surveys are used to measure employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.
Without a clear understanding of the three keys to employee engagement, companies will continue to struggle with improving employee engagement.
Defining Employee Engagement
There are three keys (psychological stages) to unlocking employee engagement: psychological availability, psychological safety, and psychological meaningfulness. In 1990, William Kahn of Boston University introduced the term "engagement" in his research paper, "Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work."
What is Psychological Availability?
Kahn's definition of psychological availability is a "sense of having the physical, emotional, or psychological resources to engage at a particular moment." This key is influenced by your availability of four things.
How much physical energy employees have available?
How much emotional energy employees have available?
How do employees feel about their own abilities and status?
What's happening in their outside life, e.g., society, personal life, etc.?
Having low levels of psychological availability prevents employees from being able to benefit from the next two keys. Psychological availability has more to do with the employee than the organization unless low levels of psychological meaningfulness and safety have a causal effect on decreased levels of psychological availability.
What is Psychological Meaningfulness?
Kahn's definition of psychological meaningfulness is a "feeling that one is receiving a return on investment of oneself in a currency of physical, cognitive, and emotional energy." When employees feel that their work is valuable and contributes to the organizational mission, they have higher levels of psychological meaningfulness.
Three critical components influence meaningfulness.
Task characteristics - How do employees feel about work responsibilities?
Is the work challenging?
Does it offer a variety of tasks?
How much creativity is involved?
How much autonomy will the employee have?
Are outcome goals clearly defined?
How is performance feedback shared?
How significant is it to the mission?
Role characteristics -What role will the employee play in completing work?
Is the role's job description accurately defined?
Work interactions - Who will the employee work with to perform and complete tasks?
What is Psychological Safety?
Kahn's definition of psychological safety is a "feeling able to show and employ one's self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career." As a certified practitioner of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, I use Timothy Clark's definition when working with clients:
Psychological safety is a condition in which human beings feel (1) included, (2) safe to learn, (3) safe to contribute, and (4) safe to challenge the status quo–all without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished.
Three critical components influence psychological safety.
Interpersonal relationships (peer-to-peer)
Group and intergroup dynamics (Teams)
Organizational norms (Subcultures)
Management style and process (Supervisor)
Let's Experiment Together
I will share tips to improve employee engagement using the three keys in future articles. Remember, culture is a marathon, not a sprint.
I challenge you to use the three keys to look at how employees are experiencing your organization. Compare how your current view of the organization's culture aligns with observations of employee engagement.
How will you improve your organization’s employee engagement in 2023?
Originally published on LinkedIn.