Building Employee Engagement for a Stronger Safety Culture (part 5)

disengaged employee10-things-employee-engagementLast issue we looked at the psychology of an engaged employee and the ramifications of engagement for a safety culture.  But there’s a flip side to all that in the disengaged employee.  It’s important to know that while we’re actively building levels of engagement in our employees, our disengaged employees are just as actively driving levels of engagement downward.  If we’re not identifying and doing something about our disengaged employees, their presence will militate against our efforts to build a safety culture.[content_protector password=”EeP-5″ identifier=”EeP-5″]

A disengaged employee is cynical, skeptical, uninspired and negative–which can be contagious for the uncommitted unengaged population (they can turn the unengaged into disengaged).  They tend to stay for what they get from the organization, rather than what they can give to it.  Hence, they are always looking for an exit–which may not be a bad thing!  If they leave voluntarily, that saves you the headache of trying to manage them out of the organization.

Disengaged employees are chronic clock watchers who count down the time left in the day until they get to leave: “10 more minutes … 9 more minutes … 8 more minutes.” And it’s not as though they have no concept of discretionary time and effort–in fact, they may be very engaged with the things they like to do; and they may even operate a side business in their spare time.

fctc-online-bannerDisengaged employees check their brains at the door when they come to work, they work in disconnected ways, and the tasks they do don’t even have to make sense to them. Be sure to follow along in the video as we explore a case study that illustrates this point. That’s it for this edition of Recordable INSIGHTS. Until next time.

~ES

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About the Author

Eric Svendsen
Eric Svendsen, Ph.D., is Principal and lead change agent for safetyBUILT-IN, a safety-leadership learning and development organization. He has over 20 years experience in creating and executing outcomes-based leadership development and culture change initiatives aligned to organizational goals, and he personally led the safety-culture initiatives of a number of client organizations that resulted in “best ever safety performance” years for those companies.