Even with only 29% of Americans saying they are engaged in their work, it can still be a hard sell to get organizations to question how their employees feel about working for them and how engaged they are in the work of the enterprise.

You may have already seen the Gallup poll statistics that show only 29% of Americans are engaged in their work. Engaged workers, according to Gallup, work with passion and feel a deep connection to their organization. Not-Engaged workers sleepwalk through the work day, using little or not discretionary energy. Actively disengaged employees undermine their coworkers and their organizations. (See Gallup Study: Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation.) The same study showed that engaged employees are the ones who drive innovation which is the lifeblood of any organization. Even with these hard facts before us, it can still be a hard sell to get organizations to question how their employees feel about working for them and how engaged they are in the work of the enterprise. Gallup has also identified questions that correlate with engagement and high performance.  Here is a sample of questions that predict engagement:

• Do you know what is expected of you at work?

• In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?

• In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Nine additional questions comprise Gallup’s Q12 survey. (See 12 Questions to Measure Employee Engagement.) The organizational conditions that would elicit positive responses to these questions are not complicated or horribly expensive. They do require leaders and those they supervise to talk to each other. I sometimes think that my most valuable contribution as a consultant is helping people talk to each other.