The 12 Elements of Employee Engagement
- Ryan Houmand
- Apr 16, 2018
- 4 min read
I've spent a career engaging employees on the teams I've led.
One time I was told by a boss, "I don't know what you're doing but we NEVER see engagement results like we do for your team."
Well, at that point I didn't know either.
I could engage a team, but I couldn't teach anyone else how to engage their teams.
It was a lot like when I learned to ride a snowboard. A lot of the people I knew asked, "Hey, can you teach me how to do that?"
I tried, but I couldn't. I just knew how to ride, not how to teach others how to ride. But since I'm a teacher and have the talents of a Maximizer, I went and got a job teaching snowboarding so I could learn to teach.
Well, I did the same thing with employee engagement.
I innately knew how to engage a team and took most of what I did as common knowledge. Then I decided to learn how to teach engagement, and I realized for the first time just how uncommon my common knowledge was.
I"m pretty sure I've read most of what has been written or studied on employee engagement and I've come to realize that most of it is just noise.
Then I found the work Gallup has done with regard to understanding the productive motivators behind employee performance and it resonated. It resonated because with some additions, it was exactly what I was doing that led my boss at ADP to tell me, "...we NEVER see engagement results like we do for your team."
For over 20 years, Gallup has been studying employees' productive motivations on the job. They've studied through surveys and in-depth interviews great managers and highly productive workgroups. Their latest "State of the American Workplace" report aggregates the data of 31 million respondents from 3.7 million workgroups and 2,161 companies in 198 countries and 14 major industries.
It's not the universe, but it's a statistically significant sample size by anyone's standards. Or in plain English, the stuff in the report can be accepted as fact without really any valid point to the contrary.
And if their studies weren't enough, I've been proving it myself managing teams for more than 20 years in what I consider my own little laboratories.
So did Gallup find after all this study? They found that there are 12 Elements of Employee Engagement. Only 12. And guess what, as long as an employee has a living wage to start with, then not even compensation or benefits weigh in on employees' productive motivations on the job.
What's more, and really great, these 12 elements are in the total control of every manager or supervisor at every level of every organization, and they don't need a budget to impact them. And since at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement is on the head of any employee's direct supervisor, that's a key point. Because we know now that every manager and supervisor in every organization in every corner of the world can do something about engagement. And not just something, but they can do EVERYTHING about engagement.
Here are Gallup's 12 Elements of Employee Engagement:
I Know What’s Expected of Me at Work
I Have the Materials and Equipment to Do My Job Right
At Work, I Have the Opportunity to Do What I Do Best Everyday
In the Last 7 Days, I Have Received Recognition or Praise for Doing Good Work
My Supervisor, or Someone at Work Seems to Care About Me as a Person
There is Someone at Work Who Encourages My Development
At Work, My Opinions Seem to Count
The Mission or Purpose of My Company Makes Me Feel My Job is Important
My Associates or Fellow Employees Are Committed to Doing Quality Work
I Have a Best Friend at Work
In the Last 6 Months, Someone at Work Has Talked to Me About My Progress
In the last year I’ve had opportunities at work to learn and grow
If you employ these elements, they work.
If you need help applying them to your everyday work as a manager, reach out to me and lets share our experience.
If you use these elements effectively you can expect results that these top quartile companies experience versus those in the bottom quartile of the Gallup database:
10% higher customer ratings
22% higher profitability
21% higher productivity
25% lower turnover (in high-turnover organizations)
65% lower turnover (in low-turnover organizations)
28% less shrink
37% fewer safety incidents
41% fewer patient safety incidents
41% fewer quality defects
For the past year, I've been working in a live laboratory. I've been managing a team at The Home Depot. They've gone from a department that struggled the most, to one of the most productive teams in the store. We've gone from the department that was the financial millstone to the number 2 department as of the latest metrics.
I'm doing it by using the 12 Elements.
They work in every industry, in every country and with every generation.
If you use them, they work. It really is that simple.
SIDENOTE: if you want to really know how engaged your team is, try Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey. It will give you responses on the 12 Elements for any team of 4 people or greater. It's affordable for any team if you self-administer it, or if you need help I can do that too.
Gallup does not certify any external consultants to interpret or teach Q12 results. As such, the non-Gallup information contained here has not been approved and is not sanctioned by Gallup in any way. Interpretations, opinions and views are those of Ryan Houmand. Ryan Houmand is compensated in any way by Gallup. His opinions are his own. Gallup the 12 Elements of Engagement and Q12 are all registered trademarks of Gallup.
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