Learning: A Love Story

There’s a wide gap between employees who merely like their work and the ones who truly love it. Used right, employee development can be the thing that warms workers’ hearts and makes them feel more passionate about your organization.

First the good news. According to a report released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in December, the majority of workers are satisfied with their jobs. Given the grim economic outlook of the past three years, many are grateful just to have a job.

The bad news is widespread satisfaction masks a deep and troubling lack of worker motivation and engagement.

While 83 percent report satisfaction with their jobs, 7 in 10 workers report being moderately engaged in their work and only about half (52 percent) report being fully plugged in at work or volunteering for activities beyond what the job requires (53 percent), according to SHRM’s 2011 Job Satisfaction and Engagement report of 600 randomly selected employees.

Limited career advancement and development opportunities pulled down the overall engagement scores, said S. Evren Esen, manager of SHRM’s Survey Research Center.

“With more individuals staying in their jobs for a longer period of time, they’re starting to focus more on items where they’re able to improve or use their skills or feel like … even if they don’t love their job and they’re ready to move on that they’re at least able to use their skills and engage in work that is allowing them to reach a higher potential,” she said.

Yet rather than seeing those opportunities to grow, many employees see a brick wall. Less than half are satisfied with the opportunities for career advancement and development, leading to the breakdown in employee engagement. In response, many companies turn to compensation and recognition programs, but those programs tend to be better suited to driving higher satisfaction.

Know Thy Employee

Instead, companies should focus on building meaning in work and providing opportunity to grow. Engagement is tied into the value the individual gets from his or her work, the opportunity to learn new skills and abilities and relationships with co-workers and supervisors.