How do you define "engaged" in the workplace? Are there different levels of engagement? On this episode of The People Purpose Podcast, Chas and Julie discuss rethinking employee needs, and how one size doesn't fit all when it comes to the workplace. Plus, find out what the global employee engagement rate is on the latest stat of the day.
How do you define "engaged" in the workplace? Are there different levels of engagement? On this episode of The People Purpose Podcast, Chas and Julie discuss rethinking employee needs, and how one size doesn't fit all when it comes to the workplace. Plus, find out what the global employee engagement rate is on the latest stat of the day.
Hey y'all, welcome to the People Purpose podcast, a show that explores all the ins and outs, challenges and opportunities, HR people, managers, and of course, all people face at work every single day. My name is Chas Fields, I'm one of your co hosts joined by my workplace bestie and co host,
Julie Develin:Julie Devlin. Hi, everybody. Sorry about my voice. It sounds like sounds like I've lost it, doesn't
Chas Fields:it? Yeah, I don't know. You've been out too late, Jules. Oh, yeah.
Julie Develin:You know which party or
Chas Fields:Jules? What's on your mind?
Julie Develin:Oh, man, what's on my mind. I've had a good opportunity the past several days, weeks to spend a lot of time out on the West Coast. And I just want to say how nice people are out on the West Coast. I think people are Yeah, like, it's interesting. Traveling as much as we do. And getting to meet different scanning to see different areas of the country having that privilege is is amazing. And you just get to understand how geography and weather and beautiful views affect people's mentality and like how nice they are. I don't know. Not saying that, in that not not saying that everybody is gonna have a bad day every once in a while and like it's all utopian. But I don't know if that's what's on my mind is just, it's like a good vibe on the west coast.
Chas Fields:It's very, it's very west coast of you now like you're very well.
Julie Develin:Hey, Hank, can you know peace of love? Like,
Chas Fields:did you did you go surfing your watch the rocks in the water?
Julie Develin:The water here is very, very cold.
Chas Fields:So you have walked the beach or been near the beach?
Julie Develin:I went to the beach? Yes, I was on the beach. But it was part of a hike. So. But there are people, a lot of people who serve you have to wear like a full wetsuit. And I will say I think there are a lot of sharks out here. So I probably wouldn't
Chas Fields:pass. I'm good. I'm good on that. Right? Yeah. I'm good on that. So here's the deal. What's on my mind? Do you see a sick hoodie, by the way? Yes. So the big fan of this hoodie. And shout out to our friends at Overture, who who sent this to me, I did not expect this. And I'm very very grateful for it's one of those hoodies. And I need to take you back here because everyone has that one hoodie or sweatshirt. That that's just right. Like you just put on I have one from high school that I still have. It's an Indiana Hoosiers one that I still have that I wear every single morning. And this one is like when that one goes. This one will be the new one. Really. Actually, it's so soft, it's baggy in the right places. It's warm and cool. It's a moderate climate sweatshirt, you know. So I just I doesn't take
Julie Develin:much doesn't take much to assemble
Chas Fields:manager really simple. But that's why we're here to hear about my comfy my comfy roomy hoodie. It is because we have a business side of the day. So as we do in every episode, we like to start with kind of the preface and where we want this conversation to go. So you ready? Yeah, let's do it. Should we do like some breathing exercises?
Julie Develin:I don't know, it is early
Chas Fields:where I am. But it is. So globally, the employee engagement rate is only 21%. Okay. And 33% of workers thrive, thrive in their overall well being. So let me rephrase globally, the employee engagement rate is only 21%. Let's start there. First thoughts.
Julie Develin:I have trouble with engagement. Yeah, it's trouble. i The more and more I dive into HR stuff and learn more about workplace trends and see the trends that are coming down the pike, you know, all these employee engagement employee experience, very, very important. But I don't know that we necessarily look at them in the right ways. Because I've said this before about engagement like we as organizations spend a lot of time assuring engagement rather than improving it. And like it's a continuous thing. So, but also like it's a continuous thing in trying to get employees To be, quote, unquote, engaged, whatever that looks like for your workforce, what is engagement for your workforce? What is engagement for your workers? Because I think engagement for a white collar employee may be different than engagement for a blue collar employee may be different than engagement for somebody who's making six figures versus someone who's not. It's like, it's, again, like, what what fills the cup of your employees, and we have to get there, we have to get to a point where we understand that on a on a human level, right, and recognize that not everybody is going to be engaged at work in the same way.
Chas Fields:It's funny, you bring that up, because I just Googled definitions of engage, right? I googled all that. And for the record, there were five that popped up immediately, which already tells me engagement is a very complicated thing, right? And that's where that's where my head goes, and Gallup did the survey. And where I where my head goes when it comes to being engaged, similar to what you said, very individualistic, right? And if I look at the terms of some of these definitions, occupied Traktor involve, right, I'm just placing keywords here participate or become involved in, arrange to employ or hire somebody, right. Same thing is, you know, engage for marriage, pledge or enter into a contract to do something. Now, if we want to talk about like engagement from that definition, if you signed a contract agreement with your company, a hiring contract, and you're doing your job, you're technically engaged if you're doing said job, according the according to the definition, right? Yes. To the textbook. It is broader than that. So yeah, but
Julie Develin:you're saying a word. You said a word than other definition? What was what did you say it for the first it participate
Chas Fields:or become involved in Occupy, attract or involved? someone's interested? Okay. Okay. The next one was parties participate or become involved in establishing meaningful contact or
Julie Develin:connection with I think, yeah, for me, it was the participate and become involved in because here's the thing. And this is an age old argument, should we be expecting employees to, to participate in after hours work activities, social events, that kind of stuff that are sponsored by the organization, take take alcohol out of it, not saying that these are drinking events or anything, just events in general? Like? I don't know. Should we be struggling with that a little bit? And if and if we don't, if we don't have if we don't see our employees there? Does that mean, they're not engaged? Or Does that just mean that they have other priorities? I
Chas Fields:think that it's a blend of both right? Because you have people who want to keep life and work very, very separate, right? I am one of those individuals, it doesn't mean I don't enjoy going to those work functions, that doesn't mean that I don't want to go to some of those work functions, right? There are just times that I would rather be at home, or be somewhere that that doesn't require me to participate in those events. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, right? Because if we are creating the culture that we want everyone to thrive in, we just have to have the mutual understanding. No, they just, they just didn't want to and that's okay. Right. On the flip side, I also have to recognize that there are times where I need to participate in team activities for the better of the team and for myself to make sure that we still have that team feel, if you will. So it's I think it's both we're all if you will, but it doesn't mean that you are less disengaged, because you didn't show up to the, to the happy hour. Right, you know, to the company sponsored happy hour. I don't I don't think that's fair for people to you know,
Julie Develin:no, it's not fair. But that doesn't mean that perception isn't their Fair, fair. Yeah, yeah. For perception, you know, what?
Chas Fields:I was gonna say like, we could take a whole nother episode on person like employee perception and team perception. That's, there's another episode put a quarter in the bucket jewels. But here's the deal, I think with what we're kind of setting the stage for is this is going to be a two part series where when we think about need, right, and we go from engagement to multiple definitions, where we've got to do all of these things to make sure employees are engaged. I think we've been talking about the need conversation, not in the wrong way, but not necessarily in the life that it should be. So today, what we're going to do is we're going to we're going to talk about, you know, hey, there are some different things that we can do for employee needs and eating those needs in the event of similar to Maslow's hierarchy, which we can talk about here in just a second. But after years and years of research and listening and understanding, we actually know what employees needs are physiological and psychological. And do you just want to highlight real quick like Maslow's just so people understand the framework of where we get to employee continuum of needs?
Julie Develin:Yeah, there's, first of all, a lot of us in school learned about Maslow's hierarchy needs motivational theory, that, really, it's a five tier model of human needs. And if you think about that triangle of what's on that need, you know, your basic needs, and then your safety needs, and your belongingness, and your esteem, and then that self actualization, where you get to a point where you're, it's like Nirvana of life, right? It's very difficult to get there. But we do have moments in our lives where we do reach that period of self actualization according to Maslow, I learned about these, these needs, theories, expectancy theories, you know, motivation theories, in my organizational development class. And in grad school, I remember learning about all of them and not understanding them at all. And then I, when I got into the workforce, and I was able to actually apply these things that I've learned, that I that I learned in school, I was like, Oh, now that makes sense. You have to put so many of these things, they're just arbitrary and what but when you put them within the framework of an organization, and it's specifically within the framework of what your organization is experiencing, or going through, it can help you to understand a little bit better. So, you know, so we're looking at five levels of hierarchies, physiological safety, love, belonging, esteem, and self actualization. And, you know, the over the over the years, I think there's been a lot of folks who have worked to debunk this Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it is a very antiquated model. Well, you're gonna say something,
Chas Fields:I don't think you can, I mean, you can try and debunk it all you want. But I think source wise, like I think about physio, you know, the, the physiological, we know, we need food, water, warmth, and rest. Right. How do you debunk that?
Julie Develin:Well, you don't debunk that report. Right. But there's other, but when you take all of these things together, right? Like, there are certain things that like, for example, yes, we do all have those physiological needs, for sure. Right. But that that esteem needs, for example, that feeling of prestige, and feeling accomplished, you know what that means? To me, it may be different than what that means to you. So where does that fall on my level of the needs? Right? I guess there's all needs there that those needs are always there. But in terms of where they fall on the
Chas Fields:on the hierarchy, yeah, on the hierarchy. So it's a sliding scale for you, if that makes sense. Yeah, move up or down based on the timing versus stating that it isn't an actual need that sort of hearing you say, Yeah,
Julie Develin:I'm we're not going to debate Maslow, right. debate the theory here today. But you know, I think that I don't know I, there's other you know, there's other theories. McClellan's achievement motivation theory is one that I think I think of where it basically so McClellan oh my gosh, if I remember. McLelland is it's like, you strive for excellence against the standard or something and like, you're you're the you're in a competition with yourself, like this achievement, motivation theory. Yep, three driving factors. Yep. Yeah. If I'm trying to I'm just trying to remember, I
Chas Fields:achieve affiliation or power, right. Yeah. need for achievement, affiliation or power. That's there. That's the motivation theory for that one.
Julie Develin:Yeah. And these theories
Chas Fields:are theories. What are theories?
Julie Develin:Note? Well, they're theories, but they expand on Maslow. Yeah. You know, motivation. Hygiene theory, I think is another one that I think about it, and then, uh, rooms Expectancy Theory. Yeah, I
Chas Fields:was wondering.
Julie Develin:Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So this was this is like, oh, my gosh, I can't even remember rooms exact Expectancy Theory. But basically, I think, like, we assume more effort will result in better results. So like, if we put more effort in, then we expect that those results are going to be there. So there's, like that converts, right? Yeah, yeah. There's like, there's like a direct alignment with like, what you're doing and where what you're doing will take you in terms of the goal. I don't know that it's It's way more it's way more complicated than probably we want to get into now. But yeah, but why does this matter chess,
Chas Fields:because the workplace is a tad different in comparison to Maslow. Right? There are some similarities. However, there is this idea that when you walk through the doors of your workplace or fire up your laptop, if you work remote, that there's somewhat of a different set of needs that we expect from organizations. Right. And what I want to do is I want to talk through kind of some of our research and how over the years, we've looked at it differently, and how people have evolved side by side with the workplace outside of the workplace, and, you know, kind of what we're experiencing, even to in today's workplace that it's, it's ever so changing, right? So part one of this series, we're just going to focus on three areas of the employee continuum of needs. And then let's just talk about them, Jules our experience or others experience, maybe, you know, people can comment or you know, put in the video or whatever they're watching this to say, hey, look, I can relate to that. Right, or I had this experience. I don't know if we want to do that on LinkedIn, but we can publish it on
Julie Develin:like, Yeah, but they're all neat. If there needs that everybody should be able to relate,
Chas Fields:I would think so I would do so. Right. So tell us the first one. Well,
Julie Develin:the three that we want to look at today, survival security relationships, starting with the first one survival, safe and ergonomically sound working environment. I think of ergonomically sound I'm like, and I think, Oh, I wonder if people have a nice chair. But, you know, in the promise of continued employment, you know, that survival thing, I think, in today's world, is very, very difficult, especially with the reductions in force that we're seeing in a lot of organizations and just some of the negativity that you read online and everything. But, yeah, I mean, I guess the question would become, are you providing these, their survival, feeling to your employees?
Chas Fields:Right, you highlight the safe and ergonomically sound working environment and promise of continued employment? And I know, you've heard me say this, it's very hard to guarantee employment. Right? Yeah. Most companies, it's very hard to say, yes, you're in a union. Right. Right. And
Julie Develin:it's very difficult. Yeah. Right. Like
Chas Fields:there are circumstances, however, where we could be better about this is making sure that employees feel that they're contributing, and that they are providing value that leads to that sense of security for employment. The question becomes, how, if you are doing this, how do you know, right? How's it working? And you know, there are things like sentiment surveys better one on ones being proactive versus reactive that we can do this now. Safety is a whole nother element, right? Like, do you provide the sense of safety when people come to work? I've been in a lot of facilities, Julie, that there are a lot of people that don't necessarily feel safe.
Julie Develin:Oh, yeah. I mean, especially you take the professions that are dangerous. And I think, you know, thank God, we have OSHA, that that overwhelms the HR people are saying, What do you mean, thank you? No, we have OSHA. OSHA is the bane of a lot of people's existence. But it's necessary, right? It's right. And you know, OSHA OSHA came about many, many, many, many years ago, if you think about the triangle, Shirtwaist Factory Fire, right, that led to the rise of the movement to make a physically safe workplace. But that's a whole other conversation. But you know, I think, yes, I mean, at a basic level, safety of workers, you read horror stories all the time about people who unfortunately have lost their lives on the job, or people who work in industries where maybe they don't have the kind of safety security equipment that they need, based upon budgets and all of that kind of stuff. Which money shouldn't be a factor with that. Yeah,
Chas Fields:I remember in construction, we had near miss reports that had to be filled out or something. I mean, it's, it's,
Julie Develin:it's horrifying to what was what the near misses were,
Unknown:you have no idea. And then they involve, Sol's
Chas Fields:listen, I'm gonna I'm gonna spare the Hollywood version of the horror that can come from a construction site, but it it really is terrifying to know that people show up to something like a construction site or in an environment to not feel physically safe. But then there's also the emotional side to which is the number two, the security category right? And what this is compensation benefits duck. We know people want comp and benefits, right. And that provides a sense of security, not going to spend any time on that. But then there's the emotional safety and security. Right, and then treated respectfully and being heard. Now, we could spend an hour and a half on just key words when it comes to respect and being heard. But I do want to talk about the respect thing. How do we, as people, leaders measure respect?
Julie Develin:How do we measure it? Yeah,
Chas Fields:maybe it's not measured.
Julie Develin:But can you measure respect? I don't know that you can measure respect? I mean, we can't survey and say, Do you respect me, and then have like, then have that measurement, because respect will change on its respect varies. It varies in situations in areas with like different types of leaders, it varies between employees between individuals definition of respect, likely is different based upon your upbringing based upon your socio economic condition based upon a lot of different things. But, you know, man respect, what does it mean for one to feel respected at work? I think we can take it from a different level where we go, okay, well, to be respected at work or to feel respected, you have to feel like you're valued. Okay, what does it mean for you to feel like you're valued? I feel like every time we get to one of these places, it just adds more questions to it.
Chas Fields:Yeah, yeah, the similar term is, is like showing regard for the other individual, right? You know, admire deeply is one of the other pieces of this definition as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements, which is probably closest to the workplace. When it comes to this. My thought process is, if we don't hear people, then we know they're not respected, which is why I like this category, if we don't provide the sense of them feeling heard, or the person sitting across from feeling heard, that we know they don't feel respected, which I believe if you work backwards in this doesn't necessarily provide a sense of security, where it's, Hey, did you actually understand what I said? Right? Or did you listen? Right? And did you listen, and then that goes back to this sense of feeling hurt and being able to converse about this. So the overarching framework of this, in my opinion, is the respect but you have to do the right things, right? treating someone like a human before they're actually going to feel respected. And here's the thing, you have some people who say Respect is earned. Right? And then you have other individuals who say no respect is given, some would say it's a blended approach. Right? Why should I not respect you? Even though I don't know you? There's that camp, right? So. So it's, it's a delicate balance. But if we want to do our best for our employees, then we need to really uncover that that sense of respect and how people get there to drive that sense of security. Does that make sense we need that
Julie Develin:we need to understand what employees feel respect means to them on an individual level, one of the things that teams may want to do is have that discussion, you know, have that discussion openly. What does it mean for you to feel respected? And you can even take that more granularly? And say, what does it mean for you to feel respected in your job here at our organization, because, again, you know, respect from a familial level may be different than respect from an employment level is, right. But but the overarching thing about all of this, and something that we have to remember is that this is about emotion. And we've said it before that there are so many times here where people don't remember how what you say to them, but they remember how they may how they made you feel. And that's going to stick with people way more than than the words and by the way, once respect is lost, very difficult to to get back because there's a direct correlation between respect feeling respected and trust. And we know that trust is the foundation of all things at work and really in life for many different relationships, which I guess is a good segue into the next one, right?
Chas Fields:Yeah, I think that's phenomenal. All of these are tied together, which is why they work together so beautifully. And Julie said it relationships right. So so what we know that employees need are healthy relationships at work, right? Particularly with their supervisor, and company reputation, which also leads opportunity to lead or serve others. Okay. Now, this I want to talk about this last piece, opportunity to lead or serve others and Alright, so from the perspective of a team, not everyone can be managers, not everyone can climb the hierarchy or ladder, right? However, even as an individual contributor, you can both lead and serve others. And I will tell you, Julie, I think serve has gotten a bad rap over the years, where it's like, Well, why would I want to serve you? That's, you know, we don't we don't do that. And I struggle with that. Because if I am able to serve, that means that I have the willingness to do something different, or to challenge myself to do something that other people aren't. Right. And instead of looking at serve as a negative thing, maybe the next person doesn't want to be a, you know, a manager, and they still want to lead and they still want to have influence. And a lot of that comes from the server to the servitude, lens and action. What are your thoughts on what
Julie Develin:do you mean by surf? I need to I need to understand what surf means to you.
Chas Fields:Yeah. So I think I think it's the commitment to it's the commitment to the business and being willing to do things that sometimes you're not necessarily comfortable with, or to extend a branch to, in a situation that you may not want to do, right? Serve. Serving, in my opinion, is also a driving factor of loyalty and commitment. Where if you're asked to do a project that may not fall exactly in the realm of what you do, but your manager knows is going to challenge you, and it's going to be better for the business. Like that's an act of service. Right? I think it's the same thing with with volunteering, you know, you may not want to go volunteer, you know, it's the right thing to do. And then you don't want to do it, but then you go do it. And then you find fulfillment, right? Where it's like, oh, wow, I think that's how I look at servitude. What about you?
Julie Develin:Yeah, I don't know. I always I always struggle with the term servant leader. I hear it all the time. Yeah, not sure. on that. Yeah. But not struggle in like, a bad way. It's like, I just don't, I don't know that I'm, I don't know, what does it mean to be a servant leader? Yeah, that's another episode. But that's a whole other conversation for a different day. But, you know, from from this, from this perspective of relationships, you know, healthy relationships that work, particularly with a supervisor, I think, on the employee continuum of needs here like this is this is probably more more important than some I would say, right? Because because, again, your your experience at work or the way that you feel about your job, your manager has a direct impact on that, I think, and, and, you know, if we have different managers, we may have different experiences. And that's just how it is. No, regardless of how fantastically wonderful a company culture is, overall, your day to day with the people that you work with, and with the people who you're getting the job done with or not, they're going to make the biggest difference in terms of your experience, because that's what you're dealing with on a day to day basis.
Chas Fields:Yeah, we should probably do an episode on how to build healthy relationships in the workplace, like just the perspective of you and I were, it's like, you were the new hire. I had been here a while and like, how did we come to fruition of doing a podcast together and like how we work together on you know, through autonomy and all this stuff, because it does take a lot of work that people don't necessarily talk about where you and I could completely disagree, but how do we work through those disagreements and make sure that we do what's best for not only ourselves and UKG and what I will tell you is sometimes it's hard right? It's like oh, build a healthy relationship great. Like don't ask them their favorite color.
Julie Develin:Well, right. Health relationship starts with respect and starts with trust and starts with communication and getting elephants in the room out of you know, before you know in those conversations before any problem
Chas Fields:be afraid of conflict right now I can count the relationship you can't be afraid to close so we're
Julie Develin:gonna we're gonna be talking more about this as we move forward. Right Chas another episode?
Chas Fields:We do we get the other three after this. Okay, so yeah, anyway, which find purpose in
Julie Develin:Oh, wow. I gosh, I forgot that we have to answer that episode. 77 Yeah, right. What
Unknown:did I find purpose in
Julie Develin:today? That what I learned in college really does is important and the Hierarchy of Needs Maslow and Hertzberg and rooms expects Expectancy Theory, all will come back to haunt me one day so people tell you, if people tell you that if people tell you that you'll never use algebra that is likely true, but don't let them however, tell you that you'll never have to talk about Hertford
Chas Fields:psychology everyday in the workplace psychology everyday in the workplace. Now it's so funny you bring it up because that was mine. I literally had a conversation yesterday with a colleague that talked about, you know, we have to recall things that we learned in the past, right? And this is a prime example. I think that's my thing is maybe, maybe I should have paid a little more attention in college. However, what are some things that I forgotten about over the years that I should go back and kind of reinvest in and make sure that I'm staying on track with messaging and helping others? I think that's the key and of course, trying to help organizations meet meet their employees needs because it ain't easy. It ain't easy. So Joe's gonna close this out.
Julie Develin:Yeah, don't forget, like, subscribe, use the hashtag people purpose pods on social media sites like LinkedIn, and all those other social media sites. Yeah, and check out all the latest research at the workforce Institute, UKG by visiting workforce institute.org So thanks for listening everybody. Cheers.