Employee Engagement vs. Employee Well-Being

A recent article in Fast Company (16 July 2024) suggests that employee well-being is more important to a business’ success than employee engagement. In some ways, this is two sides of the same coin, but they make a fair point. It would only make sense that an employee’s well-being affects job performance, commitment, engagement, and in the end, the organization’s profits.

Let’s break that down. Over the last decade, employee engagement has hit an all-time low. So when employers want to increase their employee’s engagement, how do they do that? In what ways does a CEO make changes to get everyone invested in the organization?

I worked at a university for about nine years, and one of the ways our leadership used to get us invested was by running surveys. That seems like a good idea: find out from the professors and teachers on campus what they need, what would improve the workplace, or what changes they’d like to see. The problem was that it was mostly an exercise in futility. We gave all kinds of feedback, but it seemed that nothing ever changed. In some cases, they did exactly the opposite of what we suggested. Here’s a thought: don’t give people a survey unless you will actually use the responses to see what needs to be changed.

How often do companies run surveys that end up being empty gestures? If that is the case, leadership has wasted its employees’ time and communicated that they really don’t care what the employees had to say. Well, what will that do for morale? Or job satisfaction? Or engagement? It will decrease all of those.

According to Gallup, here is the picture of the American Workplace:

• 
  Only 30% of U.S. workers are fully engaged in their jobs
• Over 50% of workers do just enough to collect their paychecks
• Nearly 20% are so unhappy with their jobs that they effectively sabotage the employers’ best interests

So, maybe the question isn’t how to increase engagement. Maybe it is about addressing employees’ well-being. At the university, our workloads were being increased while our pay was being reduced. We worked in old buildings with sometimes outdated technology. But overall, it was the increased stress – and that became about well-being. In fact, I became one of those employees who did only enough for my paycheck, who became less engaged in my job, and who eventually found another job altogether.

According to Oxford University, how people feel at work has a direct impact on their productivity. It also impacts investment and engagement. If you address employee well-being, better engagement will be one of the end results. And better engagement also improves profitability.

CEOs and workplace leaders can do a lot to elevate the well-being of their employees. You might be seeing a lot about the recent trend to hire executive coaches, but if you think coaching is all about the well-being of leadership, you’ll miss the greater benefits. 

Vibrancy Unlocked coaches CEOs to thrive so they build a better workplace. Thriving leadership means that they’ve understood the investment in their well-being. If they get it right, they’ll be more likely to invest in their employees’ well-being. If you want better engagement, invest in well-being. Contact us at www.vibrancyunlocked.com.