Editor’s Notes:
Obtained from The Harvard Business Review
Find this article and its web
enhancements at: <http://bit.ly/txtNiQ>
Teresa Amabile is Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She researches what makes people creative, productive, happy, and motivated at work. Steven Kramer is a psychologist and independent researcher. They are coauthors of The Progress Principle (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).
What Your Boss Needs to Know About Engagement
1:00 PM Wednesday November 16, 2011
by Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer
On October 28, Gallup posted an article with the sobering headline “Majority of American Workers Not Engaged in Their Jobs.” This should disturb every American worker and business leader. In an earlier report, Gallup estimated that worker disengagement accounts for more than $300 billion annually in lost productivity in the U.S. alone. In fact, according to Gallup, only one-third of workers are enthusiastic about the work they do and feel they are contributing to their organizations in positive way. Even worse, middle-aged and highly educated workers are least likely to be engaged. These are precisely the people who should be operating at peak creativity and productivity.
So, what is going on? A survey by the American Psychological Association (APA) provides some insights. For one thing, 36% of workers feel stress, and nearly half of those say it’s because of low wages. This is not surprising, given that real wages have remained stagnant while worker productivity has steadily climbed over the past two decades (pdf). But pay isn’t the major source of dissatisfaction. Workers reported that they were discontented at work because of limited opportunities for growth or advancement (43%), heavy workload (43%), unrealistic expectations (40% ), and long hours (39%).
