In this, the Age of Inclusiveness, the Era of Diversity, isn't it amazing that some institutions expect all their employees to wear the same "engagement" uniform, sort of like "Stepford" employees? Line up and grin. Cover your cube with inspirational sayings.

I bet this guy came to work every day of his life, on time, even when he was sick, did a good day's work, and never stole a thing. So what if he's cynical. Some people are. Get over it. Imagine a workplace where EVERY employee is fired up, hopeful, rarin' to go, certain that tomorrow will be a brighter day. What comes to mind? A political campaign! No cynics need apply--but they'd add a much-needed dose of reality.

If I owned a company, I'd worry less about getting my employees "engaged" than about giving them something to be engaged ABOUT. Come to think of it, as a freelancer that's exactly what I do to myself every day.

Right on, Jane.

If I was an "engagement consultant," here's what I'd do. I'd barge into the CEO's office:

"I heard you're thinking your people aren't engaged enough. Well, what do you think might engage them? What engages you? Okay, but they don't have access to the raw power, prestige or the money you're getting out of this, so what else do you think might engage a person? Oh, you have no idea? I'll give you an idea: these mopes need to feel they're part of a unique culture OR an organization that's doing something truly good in the world. In short, they need to feel the company IS good or is DOING good. OR BOTH! Oh, you offer neither? Hmm. I think we've found the problem."

This "engagement consultant" thing is a racket, pure and simple.

As far as finding out if employees are "engaged" at your company, the best identifier I have seen is the combination of the answers to two simple questions on an employee survey (or in face-to-face sessions):

1) If offered a similar position with similar pay at another organization I would choose to stay here.

2) I would recommend our organization to my family/friends as a great place to work

There you go! No consultant needed for that. The hard part is when the answers to those questions are "No" to find out why and what to do to fix it, which David has provided a pretty good start on above.

I might also suggest that employees feel engaged if they:

a) have the opportunity to do interesting, challenging work that genuinely contributes something to the success of the organization, and,

b) are recognized by their superiors in a respectful, rewarding way for their efforts in item "a"

It always strikes me as funny that something which sounds so simple when I write it out like this is apparently monumentally difficult for most corporate environments to implement.

I continue to believe many of them just don't give a damn if employees are engaged or not, but don't want to admit that because it makes them look bad, so they spend buckets of money on "consultants" and "engagement increasing strat plans" rather than simply treating employees like valued members of the team (you know, kinda like how they treat the executive team??)

And there's the issue - everyone is all for measuring engagement and asking the questions, and there are all sorts of people prepared to tell you how to do that. But then it comes to actually fixing the problems behind low engagement and the exercise too often falls apart. Why? Because of course fixing the problems might actually mean (gasp!) changing things.

At which point a lot of executives, and to be fair a lot of employees, recoil in horror. Or almost as bad, they get all fired up and say how they are "all about change" and "for us, change is the only constant" and blah, blah, blah. Except what they mean by "change" usually amounts to putting new fake plants in the lunch room and buying every manager a copy of some hocus pocus book by the change management guru of the day. Real change stops a lot of organizations dead in their tracks on engagement. It's too much trouble, so they just tinker enough to keep the old jalopy rolling without the wheels completely falling off.

Not that I'm saying anything that hasn't been said before by smarter people than me...

"Engagement" is the word de jour. Over the decades I've been at it, it seems like the suits (the consultants who all of us know) come up with some sexy new buzzword each year to re-package what they do. It is the same stuff, just re-merchandised under some new term to attract attention.

Am I cynical or what?

Saying you want change and engagement, and actually wanting them, are three different things.

Real change and real engagement probably scare most executives, or they associate them with young companies like Google, which, although successful now, they still eye warily as young upstarts.