Elements of Engagement Are Important to Employees

Beyond the business reasons, there is a human reason to focus on engagement.

When studying the impact of engagement on a person's overall well-being, A research shows that engaged employees are twice as likely to be thriving in their overall lives and report having lower levels of:

• stress
• anxiety and depression
• bad cholesterol

It is easy to underestimate the influence of your career on your overall well-being. But when you don't like what you do each day and are not involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to your work, you have less energy, your productivity suffers, you take more sick days and you experience higher levels of stress.

For Employee Well-Being, Engagement Trumps Time Off

For companies trying to choose between improving employee engagement and boosting workforce well-being, This research provides good news. "Employers can improve both aspects at the same time," What's more, the research strongly suggests that "the nature of the work environment may have more of an effect than workplace policies on overall well-being,"

The researchers weren't surprised to find higher levels of well-being among engaged employees.

Employee engagement is a much stronger predictor of overall well-being than factors such as hours worked, weeks of vacation time taken, and flextime allowed, according to new research, The study, which used a sample of 4,894 U.S. Panel members who work full time, explored the relationships among employee engagement, hours worked, flextime, vacation time, and well-being.

Researchers weren't surprised to find higher levels of well-being among engaged employees. Nor were they surprised to find that that engaged workers were substantially more likely to say that their employer offers "a lot" or "some" flextime -- or that engaged employees work slightly more hours than do their actively disengaged or not engaged counterparts.

Quality of the workplace is more important than company policies

Though workplace policies such as hours worked, vacation time, and flextime do relate to employee well-being, the quality of the workplace trumps policy in affecting overall well-being. "Though vacation time and flextime were associated with higher well-being," Agrawal says, "those who were engaged in their work but took less than one week of vacation had 25% higher overall well-being than actively disengaged employees, even those with six or more weeks of vacation." And workers who took four weeks of vacation had only about 7% higher overall well-being compared with those who took one week of vacation.

Flextime had the strongest relationship to overall well-being. Engaged employees with a lot of flextime have 44% higher well-being than actively disengaged employees with very little or no flextime. And among employees who are actively disengaged or not engaged, those with flextime have higher overall well-being.

The study also shows that an engaging work environment boosts the odds of high well-being regardless of workplace policy. What matters most is employee engagement. "Fewer hours, more vacation time, and flextime cannot fully offset the negative effects of a disengaging workplace on well-being,".

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Overcome Career Hurdles

 

Bumps in the road

No one’s employment journey is perfectly smooth. There will always be bumps along the way. You may be laid off, fired, or passed over for promotion. Or you may just come to a point where you feel stuck.

How can you weather struggles like these and emerge with clarity and greater momentum?

Begin by reminding yourself that no job is permanent.

Think of each position as an assignment—a stepping stone on the path to your next opportunity.

 By seeing each role as an opportunity to learn and grow, you are likely to increase your job satisfaction.

Bounce back

Still, it’s inevitable that at some point in your work journey, you’ll experience a setback or feel stuck.

You may be tempted to respond in the moment, but stop yourself. The first thing out of your mouth isn’t likely to be useful for your reputation or job prospects.

Instead, take time to cool down.

When you’re stressed, your body automatically goes into “fight-or-flight” mode.

Adreneline courses through your body, which makes it hard to think or speak rationally.

Once you’ve gotten past your initial emotional response, use these strategies to reframe your thinking—and turn the challenge into an opportunity:

Switch the question

Swap “Why me?” and other questions that provoke self-pity. Opt for action-oriented questions, such as “What can I do to move forward?” or “What positives can I gain from this situation?”

Set “negativity appointments”

Rather than let negative thoughts consume you, schedule specific times each day where you allow yourself to think about the setback. During the rest of the day, if negative thoughts occur, mentally set them aside until your “appointment.”

Try to see other points of view

Looking at events or decisions from the company’s vantage point helps you forgive where necessary and gain insight that may help you avoid repeating mistakes.

If you’re between jobs, use coach, consultant, and author Lauren Mackler's advice to make the most of your time.

 

Get unstuck

Everyone has bad days or even weeks at work. But if you’ve felt stuck—not learning, not growing, not engaged—for longer than that, you may be at a career impasse.

Such impasses are not unusual. Admitting you’re caught up in one is the first step to making a change.

Timothy Butler, Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, suggests thinking about a career impasse as a wake-up call.

 

Here are ways to start moving past the impasse:

Identify five to seven jobs that excite you

Look at the underlying themes. Are you searching for new learning opportunities? Do you want to unleash your artistic side? Use these to narrow your list down.

Collect data on your short list of options

Conduct informational interviews and read up on any new skills or companies that interest you. Tap your networks to get feedback on the options you’re considering.

Look for opportunities

Can you redesign your job or are there other positions in the company that would be a better fit? If so, explore these possibilities with your manager. Consider expanding your search to other companies only after exhausting these options.

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Become an Agile Learner

 

Learn... to be successful

What’s the most important skill you need to succeed in today’s work world? It’s not technical proficiency or leadership competency—it’s the ability to learn.  

In today’s ever-evolving workplaces, continuous learning is a must for remaining competitive and providing ongoing value.

Why?

“The half-life of skills is getting shorter.”— Joanna Daly, Vice President of Talent

Without a concerted effort to continually refresh and renew your skills, you run the risk of falling behind.

But it’s one thing to talk about the importance of learning and another to actually do it.

As children, we spend much of our time in school learning how to learn. As adults, we often get out of the habit.

Think about playing a sport or mastering an instrument. Practice, repetition, reflection, and feedback are all key to success. The same is true of learning new job skills. 

You don’t need to wait for guidance from your manager to build new skills. But you do need to be sure you’re focusing your learning in the right areas:

• Consider what’s valuable to your organization
• Research the skills companies in your industry are looking for
• Set up opportunities to develop skills where you have gaps
• Enlist people to provide you with feedback as you try out new skills

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Adopting a growth or a fixed mindset

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S.M.A.R.T

S.M.A.R.T

Goals to achieve a better life

What is Success? Why do you need a Goal?
Success (the opposite of failure) is the status of having achieved and accomplished an aim or objective.

In fact, without setting goals, there is no clear destination. When we do make the effort to set goals, we are forced to contemplate the things we want to achieve 

S = Specific Clearly state the desired outcome

M = Measurable Provide a numerical target that clearly defines what results are necessary to achieve the goals

A = Attainable Goals must be realistic or people will become disengaged

R = Realistic The goal should be realistic and achievable, within the time you’ve set

T = Trackable Goals should be tracked continuously to find out where you have reached, what percentage has been accomplished, how much has to be accomplished, and so on

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