In the last few years a great deal has been written about employee engagement. Several definitions of employee engagement have been suggested. All of the definitions share similar themes. They refer to employees being committed to their work, being passionate about their work, being emotional connected to their organization and to their coworkers. After the publication of the book, First Break All the Rules, the Gallup organization became well known for the research in this area. Buckingham and Coffman, who coauthored the book, provided numerous illustrations of the connection between, good people, good managers and successful companies.
In the late nineties Entec Corporation was examining a flood of statistics that showed the rapid increase in the cost of absenteeism as it related to mental disabilities. For example, in 1998, in a telecommunications company with 34,000 employees, the cost of absenteeism due to mental disabilities had reached 35% of the total cost of absences. We also examined drug use statistics at various companies and noted a significant increase of drugs usage for various types of emotional disabilities. At one of our client organizations, a hospital with 3,500 employees, between 1997-2001, there was a five fold increase in the use of drugs such as Welbutrin, Prozac, Zolofot, Paxil and other drugs that are typically used for treating depression, anxiety disorder and burnout. In their May 1999 report, The Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health estimated that the cost of depression to business in the US was about $60 billion per year.
From our vantage point there was a huge gap between the published research on employee engagement and the accelerated growth in emotional disabilities. It became clear that an understanding of the relationship between mental health and employee engagement was needed. Entec assembled a team that included experts in organizational development, strategic management, leadership, behavioral psychology, medicine and psychiatry. This breadth of professions was needed to ensure that employee engagement was considered from a systems perspective. Their first task was to develop a comprehensive model of employee engagement. A Research Advisory Group was established that would provide feedback to this work. The research advisory group comprised four individuals: the Director of Occupational Health at St. Michael’s Hospital, Vice President & Medical Director, Sun Life Insurance, Dean of Business, McMaster University and the President & CEO, Homewood Health Center (a preeminent psychiatric hospital). Although the team held only one formal meeting, input and feedback was received from the advisory group on an ongoing bases over the duration of this project.
It took two years of research and discussion for the team to create the Employee Engagement Model©. This model is depicted below. Four components were thought to influence employee engagement: health, leadership, vision and values and organizational practices and processes. The Individual Health module was divided into two parts because it was apparent that there were factors over which an individual has control and external elements over which they have little to no control. For example, everyone has the opportunity to control their eating habits, physical fitness, spiritual fitness, and other life style factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption. However, individuals have no control over external factors such as terrorist attacks, job loss of a spouse, layoffs and death of family member, or a friend. Yet all of these will influence a person’s well-being.
Similarly within the organizational context, there are practices over which an employee has varying degrees of control. Most employees have some level of input or say regarding practices at the team or departmental level. Typically, they have little to no say regarding corporate wide policies and practices regarding governance, mission and business strategy.
When the model was completed the team was asked to create an employee survey that seamlessly included questions for both the organizational and the individual health portions of the Employee Engagement Model©. Since the team was familiar with and had personally used the five-point scoring scale, they decided to consider only validated surveys that used a five point scale. The team had an advantage in developing this survey. Each member of the team was able to draw upon their own areas of expertise and contribute diagnostic tools with which they were familiar. Prior to 1999, Entec Corporation was measuring organizational alignment. This gave the team another source of validated questions. The Research Advisory Group proved to be an excellent source of existing diagnostics, especially in the areas of measuring stress, burnout and other psychiatric diagnostic tools.
Working with a model made it surprisingly easy to develop the survey. It provided logic for the selection and placement of questions. When the survey was completed the team agreed to name the new survey the Organizational Health & Employee Engagement Survey©.
The Individual Health portion of the survey measured for depression, burnout and addiction. With careful positioning and communication, response rates ranged from 83%-90%. These response rates showed that employees were not reluctant to complete a survey that asked a number of personal questions.
The results from the application of this comprehensive survey revealed new insights into the relationship between organizational practices, leadership behaviors and employee mental health.
Two overall findings were evident:
1. There was a strong correlation among the four organizational components: departmental practices, leadership behavior, corporate practices and vision and values.
2. There was a strong correlation among the three mental health factors: depression, burnout and addiction.
The research also showed:
1. The organizational scores and the mental health scores moved in tandem. As the organizational scores increased (improved) the mental health scores increased (improved) as well. As the organizational scores deteriorated so did the mental health scores.
2. Only burnout linked with the organizational components. There was no statistical link between either depression or addiction and the organizational factors.
3. No clear link was found between leadership behaviors and any of the three mental disabilities
4. The number of employees who are experiencing depression is always greater than those who are experiencing burnout and addiction. These numbers showed that there is a very high probability of a person who is suffering from burnout or an addiction to also be in a state of depression.
To illustrate these observations graphically, two models were developed that show the range of possible correlates. The two models are shown below.
Research Implications
Since burnout is the only mental health component that statistically links with the organizational components we can conclude:
1. The measure of an organization’s contribution to the emotional well-being of employees can be determined by the number of employees who are at high risk or who are already suffering from burnout.
2. The number of employees who are suffering from depression also includes those who are suffering from burnout and addiction. Therefore the increment between the number of employees who are experiencing burnout and the number who are suffering from depression can be used to show the number of employees whose mental disability can most likely be attributed to personal factors that are external to the workplace. The implication of this finding is that there are two categories of employees in the workplace: those who are hurting as a result of pressures in the workplace and those who are suffering for personal reasons. If either should reach a point where they are unable to function and go on short or long term disability, the design of the return-to-work process needs to recognize the source of the disability.
3. Additional research is required to better understand to what extent the burnout group is also experiencing difficulties that may be connected to their personal lives.
4. Additional research is needed to directly connect mental health with employee engagement.
This latest approach to measuring employee engagement is very effective because it helps organizations to identify both “hot spots” in the organization and specific practices that were contributing to employee disengagement and to poor mental health. They can now target follow up actions much more precisely both on the organizational side as well as the health promotion side.
About Author:
Kelly McCullough is a graduate with a Masters in Organizational Health from the University of Michigan. She has worked for Entec Corporation as research assistance. One of her most significant projects was her work as a research analyst on a major study of older workers that was led by Entec Corporation for the Canadian Federal Government.
