The Employee Engagement Crisis in America

The employee engagement numbers in America are pretty alarming.

According to Gallup, only 31% of U.S. employees are engaged at work today. Another 51% are not engaged, and 18% are actively disengaged. Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the U.S. economy roughly $2 trillion a year in lost productivity.

But I've always found it easier to visualize the problem another way.

More than a decade ago, I came across a video from employee engagement expert Bob Kelleher called Who's Sinking Your Boat? The visual was so simple that I've never forgotten it.

Imagine your company as a boat with 10 employees. Three are at the front rowing hard. They're engaged, believe in where the company is going, and are doing everything they can to get there.

Five are sitting in the middle watching the scenery go by. They're not hurting the company, but they're not helping move the boat forward either.

And two are at the back actively trying to sink it.

I remember seeing that and thinking: I never want my company to look like that.

When I was building my own business, I was paranoid about employee engagement. I didn't want three people rowing while everyone else came along for the ride. I obsessed over getting all 10 people rowing in the same direction.

Because you can have the best growth strategy in the world, but if your people aren't engaged, you'll never reach your potential. You can spend more on marketing, build a better sales process, invest in technology, and develop a brilliant strategic plan. But if only three people are rowing, you're asking a small percentage of your team to move the entire company forward.

Meanwhile, there's another boat next to you with six or eight people rowing. Maybe they've figured out how to get almost everyone pulling in the same direction. Eventually, they're going to lap you.

That's why I've never viewed employee engagement as simply an HR issue. It's a growth issue.

And for small businesses, there's a huge opportunity here. You don't have 100,000 employees. You may have 10, 20, or 50. Moving even a few people from the middle of the boat to the front can fundamentally change your company's performance.

So take a hard look at your own boat. How many people are rowing? How many are just along for the ride? And, perhaps most importantly, is anyone actively trying to sink it?

In my next post, I'll share what leaders can do to get more people picking up an oar.