22 Awful Employee Engagement Mistakes

Here are 22 awful employee engagement mistakes.

1. Rules are for Rulers. Thinking employee engagement can be reduced to rules. Rules are for Rulers and board games, not for people. I don’t want to work for someone who thinks they are my Ruler or that they can Monopolize me.
2. HR and Beyond. Thinking employee engagement is just another HR issue. And while we are at it, I think it is time for HR to morph into this century. Just as we let go of Personnel it is time to let go of HR and become Internal Community Mobilizers or Internal People Artists or something that doesn’t just keep pairing humans with the word resource.
3. Measure madness. Thinking employee engagement is simply taking a survey or a pulse or some other measure of a person. Often these surveys contribute to disengagement and breed cynicism.
4. Them is us. Leaders and managers and supervisors looking at employee engagement as something that they are not a part of too. Leaders, managers, and supervisors…you are employees too. Don’t ever refer to employees as them because, “them is us.”
5. The answers begins with the questions. Thinking an external consultant has the best questions for your survey and failing to ask your employees what questions you should be asking about engagement. We don’t play a part in things we didn’t have a hand in creating.
6. Finish strong with a call to action. Not finishing the employee engagement survey (if you simply have to have one) with the question: What do you need to do right now to enhance your own engagement?
7. Villains and victims. Looking for villain to blame for lack of engagement, perceiving yourself to be a victim and then acting as if you are helpless. Management must stop villainizing unions just as unions must stop villainizing management. Do you really want to be a victim and spend your working days thinking you are helpless?
8. Be happy. Confusing employee engagement with having happy employees of satisfied employees and not focusing on the results that will make a difference. If organizations do not stay economically viable they will be valuable to no one including employees.
9. Stop the secret. Naively searching for the secrets that will unlock employee engagement and falling prey to clever copywriters or marketers who try and sell you tired and worn out tips cleverly disguised as secrets.
10. Better systems. Believing the answer to employee engagement relies in a better system like a new performance management system and failing to see the importance of authentic, connected, and engaged dialogue.
11. No time to talk. Thinking engaging dialogue will take too much time. I believe NASA has proven it can occur in about 45 seconds and save lives.
12. Don’t you trust me? Foisting all kinds of initiatives and deceits upon employees and bemoaning employees lack of trust as you call them your greatest resource and fire them at the first sign of trouble.
13. Avoiding immediacy with social media. Engaging employees through email, slogans, and cute You Tube CEO videos while failing to really show up and  talk with them face-to-face.
14. We need disengagement. Believing inflated statistics of disengagement offered by clever categorization schemes designed by consulting companies with vested interests in having disengaged employees as a problem to be solved. Why don’t I find these huge numbers of disengaged employees when I go from company to company talking directly with employees.
15. What’s in a name? Believing anonymous survey data. Engagement needs a name and a face and authentic safe conversation that join all of us together. Part of the problem with engagement is that employees feel ignored or anonymous…so do you really want me to believe that an anonymous survey is actually a step in the right direction towards engagement.
16. Vampires and stakes. Using the term employee engagement as a euphemism for “we just want to suck more work out of our people.”  We are not vampires and we all need to have a stake in our work.
17. Catch a WIFM. Employees thinking that there is no benefit for them to be engaged at work. When you engage at work you are more engaged at home, your work will be more rewarding and your days will be less taxing, and you are accepting payment for your services and if the organization is so disengaging then engage in changing the organization or leave.
18. Joined at the hip. Always combining the word engagement with employee and neglecting employer engagement. Engagement is bidirectional and needs energy and input from everyone.
19. This is business. Only getting on board with employee engagement because you are convinced of the business case and not doing it because in your heart you know it is the right thing for your customers, your employees, and your shareholders or stakeholders.
20. Drop that carrot. Don’t use the image or word carrot in reference to employees. We are not horses and even horses probably aren’t too fond of the carrot and stick. So stick your carrot and find a better more respectful metaphor for motivation and employees.
21. Declare a truce on the talent war. Drop the war metaphor too. There is not a war for talent. Make love not war. Remember that love doesn’t mean being mushy, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya around the conference table — it means having the discipline, concentration, and patience to make the workplace a safe place to create results and enhance relationships.
22. We all make mistakes. Thinking you know the mistakes of employee engagement and making the mistake of writing them down as if they are rules that can be corrected. See, we all make mistakes and I am sure you spotted some of mine here.

Embracing our humanness. Engagement is a human endeavor. Humans are fallible. Let’s openly and honestly see our mistakes, do what we can to correct them, and learn from them as we move forward into new richer and healthier mistakes.