For the first time since the introduction of the “Employee Engagement Index“ (Gallup Institute) in the year 2001, a positive trend concerning employee engagement can be recognised in Germany: The percentage of non-engaged employees has decreased from 24% to 17%! This decline possibly reflects the tendency in German companies of putting the organisational structure more in the focus.
If you believe statistic calculations, non-engagement costs the German economy annually between 99 and 118 billion Euros.
Fig.: Gallup logo - employee engagement
It is well-known that employee engagement leads to a significant increase in productivity, less fluctuation, more customer orientation, more product recommendations of the own company and also acts as a buffer against distress. How can this critical success factor be concretely nurtured? The key is found in the management culture. In order to improve it, three essential steps are helpful:
Managers have to be trained more in understanding employee needs. That this fact is not as trivial as it appears, we have already explained in an earlier note.
Companies have to chose suitable managers via an effective selection system: People that not only produce excellent results, but also inspire others, e.g. by means of modern leadership concepts such as Positive Leadership.In management training much more focus should be put on employee management. A piece of advice for classical Business School Education, where they still like to work with case studies and introspection is only of secondary importance.
Thus, German companies have headed in the right direction. Let’s hope that this is not just a flash in the pan, but that it stands for a real trend reversal.