The Atlas

The third of Gallup's 12 Elements of Employee Engagement is: At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. This is often the source of a lot of generational tension in the work place. It's not uncommon that older generations (the top half of Gen X and above, in particular) were raised to believe that work was work, and that their responsibility to their family was to go, do their job, and simply be a good soldier for 40 years until retirement. A great deal of the pissing and moaning that we see between older and younger generations is often centered around this idea: things are the way they are, and you just need to quit your bitching and suck it up. At the risk of stirring up that tiresome cat fight, I call bullshit.

I'm gonna take a break from my series on engagement, to express my gratitude. I'm officially a week into my new apartment in Miami, getting settled into a new city, and I have a ton to be grateful for. More than anything, though, is some amazing relationships with incredible people who mean the world to me. And, the truth is, outside of my family, the vast majority of these people are friends I made at work over the years. When I get a bit evangelical (forgive the word choice) about work being a powerful vehicle for personal development, these people are invariably the reason.

I had an interesting exchange with a gentlemen on LinkedIn recently, regarding my conviction about the importance of empowering managers and driving engagement. His point was not wrong at all -- but it did raise the question of why it also isn't one that is a priority for me.

Today I want to discuss the second of Gallup's Elements of Employee Engagement: Do you have the materials and equipment to do your job right? As someone who has spent her entire adult life implementing technology tools that were intended to remove friction from various processes, this one is a particularly painful topic because more often than not, the decision-makers driving the funding and implementation of systems and tools are confident that they are giving their employees something valuable, while all too often, the employees vehemently disagree.

Getting a new boss is one of the most common major adjustments that people experience. And because the relationship you have with your immediate supervisor is the largest influence on how you feel about your job, trying to make that relationship productive and positive is a worthwhile investment. So, where do you start?

Do you know what is expected of you at work? It is no accident that this is the very first of Gallup's list of 12 Elements of Employee Engagement. This is often the single biggest stumbling block. But without this being clearly understood, nothing else that follows stands a chance.

For a lot of people, the idea of employee engagement is a fuzzy concept that only millennials care about. Bullshit. The things that millenials (and Gen X) want in work is the same as what Boomers want -- the difference is that Boomers were often raised in a time and place where they were TAUGHT that they had no right to expect it. Gallup's research on why Employee Engagement really MATTERS to the bottom line of businesses is a useful place to start when it comes to skeptics. And when you are struggling with employees who are NOT engaged, the Gallup's 12 Elements provide some useful places to start righting the ship.

In last week's email, I talked about Gallup's 12 Elements of Employee Engagement when it comes to answer the question, "What do you need at work?" A few weeks earlier, I did a video on using Maslow's Hierarchy. Today, I'm going to start working my way through those questions and needs, in order. The most basic start, of course, is the very bottom of Maslow: physiological need.