Ever wonder why some people on your team are engaged and others aren’t? Many of the studies conducted on employee engagement include a psychological profile of both engaged and unengaged employees, and it’s instructive for purposes of building a safety culture to know how each one thinks and behaves on the job. Here is a window into the psyche of the engaged employee. [content_protector password=”EeP-4″ identifier=”EeP-4″]
From a psychological perspective, it’s important to know that engaged employees experience feelings of exhilaration on the job. They actually derive pleasure from working (which is one of the reasons they may arrive early or leave late). They are enthusiastic workers who work in unstressed ways–outside of the stress they place on themselves to get the job done in a quality way.
Engaged employees stay for what they can give to the organization (rather than what they can get from it!), and they desire opportunities to apply their talents and to make a difference. This is significant for building a safety culture, because we can’t lead a safety culture on our own–we need help to do that, and our engaged employees are a natural starting point to help champion this effort.
Engaged employees also have a clearer “line of sight” than other employees. Line of sight refers to an employee’s ability to see the larger picture of how what they do on the job impacts the end game. Employees who have a clear line of sight make better decisions on the job and understand the value of their contribution.
Engaged employees, unlike other employees, put discretionary time and effort into the job. They tend to lose themselves in their work, and often wish they had more time in the day to complete the things they want to complete. They work with passion, commitment, and pride; and because of that they outperform other employees and less likely to leave the organization.
Stay tuned to this series as we address the contrast of this in our next issue where we’ll look at the psychology of the disengaged. But that’s it for this edition of Recordable INSIGHTS. Until next time.
~ES
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