Employee engagement has been a hot topic for the past few years, and for good reason.

Companies want to attract and retain talented people who truly care about the work they’re doing, yet they often struggle to find employees who take ownership, are proactive and share the same work ethic as they do.

So what’s the deal?

Engaged workers are distinctive for their stellar performance and feeling like they have a personal stake in the organization's success.

According to Harvard Business School professor Leonard A. Schlesinger, “When employees know more about the business and have an economic stake in the outcome, there’s a high probability that turnover rates would go down exponentially.”

Think of it this way: At most companies, an employee’s job is to show up at the appointed time and perform certain tasks. If the company has a mission and a vision, the employee probably doesn’t know what it is or how their role moves it forward. Very few companies are transparent with financial information and even when an employee has set goals, they aren’t tied to outcomes.

How are these employees supposed to be engaged and proactive when they have no skin in the game themselves?

 Ask yourself:

• Are your employee’s goals tied to actual outcomes/results?
• Are you transparent about the financials of the organization?
• Are you asking employees to provide feedback? And are you listening to them like what they have to say is important?

If an organization's leadership is complacent about treating their employees like true stakeholders in the company, then why should they have the expectation that their employees will be anything but complacent about their day-to-day responsibilities?

If you’re interested in learning how to transform your company culture and set up your employees to be engaged and think like owners, join us on Feb. 20 for our “Drive Engagement and Fuel Your Performance Engine” workshop.

At this 3-hour workshop, you’ll learn:

• The difference between employee satisfaction and engagement and why it matters to your bottom line.
• How employee engagement surveys work, what questions to ask/not ask, and what to do with results.
• Important factors related to engagement (like ownership!)
• How to equip managers with leadership strategies to drive engagement.
• Tactics to make employees more emotionally committed to the organization.
• How other organizations in our area have used employee engagement surveys and seen organizational results through case study exploration.

When you empower employees with a personal stake and a seat at the table, your business goals will directly align with the goals of your people. This alignment creates higher engagement, less turnover and increased overall success.

Bottom line: If you want employees to act more like owners, you probably need to treat them more like owners.