30/40/30 Rule of Workforce Engagement

In the last blog post, we talked about the state of today’s workforce engagement. Remember that Gallup revealed less than 30% of your employees are engaged with your company?

This presents a great opportunity for all of us to step up as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders. A good many of the reasons for the disengagement could be addressed with the active management of emotions, the constancy of communication and the willingness to ease up on command and control.

Let’s look at the 30/40/30 rule as it applies to discretionary effort and engagement.

Facts:

• 30% of your employees are your champions. They are your positive mouthpiece on Glassdoor. They are your ambassadors of hiring. They are those who work the corporate objectives with purpose and passion.
• 30% of your employees are actively disengaged with you. They don’t care. They are posting the poor reviews on employment sites. They steer people away from the company. They bog things down. They hate you.
• 40% are on the fence, using nominal discretionary effort, but waiting to see which side wins.

On which percentage group should you focus?

Most of us, admittedly, focus on the bottom 30%. They eat up our time with reprimands, coaching, cajoling, re-do’s, re-explanations. OK, you get the picture. They take a lot of time to manage – and what are we really managing but the bad PR and ill-will? t is an awful energy suck. Interestingly, if you were looking at your business customers, wouldn’t it be beneficial to release and let go of the bottom percentage who take up all of your time? Great consulting practices regularly fire the bottom 10% annually to make room at the top.

Perhaps you say we should focus on the middle? Yes, but not yet.

Although counter-intuitive because many of them are so self-sufficient and high-producing, the group that requires the most attention is the top 30%. It’s a special kind of attention:

• Recognition of a job well done
• Regular coaching to break through the next set of barriers
• The awarding of higher profile assignments
• Constant feedback for improvement – always offered in the spirit of “you can do it”
• Allowing the learning to come from the mistakes incurred by this group – they are the de-facto teachers through their effort
• Setting an environment where this group of leaders can interact with and spark each other

Who is watching this? Yep. That middle 40%. They start to notice that the top 30% are winning and that side begins to look more attractive. This is when you can start to pay a little bit more attention to that middle group. Who is willing to step up? Who is willing to be a teacher from his or her own mistakes? Who starts sitting at the table with the “in crowd?” Emotionally Intelligent Leader that you are, you will see who is ready to move and you then can coach, communicate and connect to create that movement.

The teeter totter starts to tip towards the engagement crowd.

On the back-end, you are watching the disengaged. Some of them will cross over to the mid-section. A few, who have found their inner light once again, may even find themselves in the top 30%. Celebrate. There are no “I told you so’s” here.

Those that remain will either opt out on their own because the environment has changed and they can’t prevail or will be deselected by you. All without fanfare or drama. Because…the rest of the group is looking in the other direction.

From a leadership perspective, you have to be drama-proof and purposeful. Neutral (described as passionate, purposeful, and unhooked by my, or other’s emotions) is the preferred stance. And you must be constantly banging the drum of culture, communication, commitment, connection.

Not only banging the drum…but doing the dance, too!