C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement

Recognize This: If you can’t acknowledge you have a problem in the first place, you have no hope of solving it.

The Economist Intelligence Unit and HayGroup came out with very interesting research late last year: Re-engaging with Engagement: Views from the boardroom on employee engagement. This week, we’ll look at some of major conclusions of the report and how they impact you.

“The C-suite displays a consistently 'rose-tinted' view of engagement that is not shared lower down the ranks. One important revelation from our survey is the huge disparity between the views of many in the C-suite and those of less senior directors, including just a single rung below board level. For example, 47% of C-suite executives believe that they themselves have determined levels of employee engagement, a view shared by only 16% of senior directors outside the C-suite. More than one in five in the C-suite believe that employees are ‘much more engaged’ than those in rival firms, compared with only 7% of respondents outside the C-suite.”

I see two key problems here:
1) If you’re not willing to acknowledge the problem, you have no hope of solving it.
2) Reality of a situation may be best assessed by those closest to the workers and the work being done.

What’s the reality in your organization? Does the CEO truly lead engagement efforts? Do the actions of the C-suite ultimately determine how engaged employees really are? Do you think the employees in your company are “much more engaged” than those in rival firms? What’s the “reality” from your level within the organization?