HR Summit ’08 Special (May 6 & 7), Singapore

Organizations that simultaneously value their employees while never losing sight of their business goals have higher levels of growth, market value, return on assets, and returns to shareholders. “The key factors are levels of employee and management commitment and engagement which are leading indicators of how well an organisation will do financially,” says Judith Bardwick, international speaker, writer and management consultant. Since the Gallup Organization summarized the 4.5 million responses to a survey showing 20% of employees were engaged, 60% were not, and 20% were actively disengaged, commitment and engagement have become the most important measure of effectiveness in organizations, Bardwick feels. “They’re variables of passion: how strongly, positively or negatively, does an employee feel about their work, their boss, their organization? Commitment is a measure of how important it is to be part of the organization. Is it a source of employee pride and self-esteem, or regret and embarrassment? Engagement is a measure of whether an employee feels their work really matters.”

People who are committed and engaged identify with their company and are proud to be part of it, and the work they do fulfills a strong sense of mission, she asserts. High levels of commitment and engagement are only possible when there are strong reciprocal relationships between an organization and its members, Bardwick says. “Those relationship stopped being reciprocal and mutual when employees stopped being viewed as stakeholders and were seen, instead, as costs. The result has been a Psychological Recession – a very widespread and long-term sense of economic and psychological vulnerability which has impacted about half of our employees at every level in most industries.”