# The 4 pillars of employee engagement (the overview) - **Episode:** [02](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/02.md) (2022-07-12) - **Type:** other - **Tags:** employee-engagement, framework - **Time:** 7:17–11:41 (start 437s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/02?t=437](https://truthliesandwork.com/02?t=437) --- [7:17] Leanne Elliott: Yes, just to give a little context before I dive into number 1, the reality is there is no one-fit model of assessing employee engagement within your organisation, and particularly if you're a small organisation, I believe it's very important to understand the unique drivers of engagement within your business, particularly in digital businesses, creative businesses, or, you know, even businesses that are recruiting more entry-level roles, they're likely to have a, a higher demographic of millennial, Gen Z workforce. So people kind of age 38 and under [7:58] Al Elliott: Sorry, I was about to ask you to define Gen Z and millennial, but— [8:01] Leanne Elliott: Sure. Yeah. So millennials, I think, are 1980 to '94, um, and then Gen Z is a generation after that, so '95 to I can't remember, but 20-something. But the people, Gen Zs, are now the people that are entering the workforce and having quite the impact. They're going to have slightly different drivers of engagement. So, for example, we found in a client recently that corporate social responsibility was really important to this demographic. So, it is important to look in your business and find those unique drivers of engagement [8:36] Al Elliott: That's said [8:38] Leanne Elliott: There is research that's been done, and I'm going to reference my bezzie mate Dave McLloyd again. I've met him, would love to. Dave, if you're listening, give me a call. Um, but he did a, a really fundamental piece of research into employee engagement. It's actually commissioned by the UK government back in 2009. Do you know why that was commissioned, Al? [8:58] Al Elliott: Uh, no, I don't know [9:00] Leanne Elliott: It was commissioned because it's estimated That disengaged employees, which we know are around 70% of the workforce, claim to be disengaged [9:11] Al Elliott: That's 70s? [9:11] Leanne Elliott: 70. Yeah. The cost of that is estimated between— be between £52 and £70 billion per year [9:20] Al Elliott: Wow. That's slightly more than you got paid last year [9:24] Leanne Elliott: Only slightly. But, but yeah, it's a massive economic problem, which is why this isn't fluff. This isn't nice to have. This is fundamental to business success. Which is why the UK government commissioned this report. And what McLloyd found, he spoke to lots of different organisations, small public sector, private sector, massive corporations, and he found that there are 4 general areas that organisations can concentrate their efforts to improve employee engagement [9:53] Al Elliott: And just to check, this is applicable, not— this isn't just the IBMs and the Facebooks of the world. This is applicable to someone who's got 20 employees [10:00] Leanne Elliott: Even more so applicable, I think, because when you think about a larger organisation, and we go back to that analogy of the boat last week, And if you didn't listen, I'm not going to explain it. Go back. But if we think about that analogy again, the more people that you have rowing forwards, those people who are disengaged are going to potentially have less disruption or less impact in a larger business, potentially. In a smaller business, if the vast majority, if 70% of your workforce are disengaged, You know, you're talking, you might have 4, 3, 4 people that are rowing forward in your boat and the rest aren't. So, I think it's even more imperative that small businesses take note of employee engagement [10:44] Al Elliott: Brilliant. So, let's go get into the 4. So, do you want to, are you going to list them off in 1, 2, 3, 4? Are you going to go one explanation? Well, why don't we, do you know what I quite like? When, when you hear the 4 and then you hear the context behind them [10:58] Leanne Elliott: So, I'm going to give you the, the kind of the, the psychological terms that were given to all the, you know, the, the terms of research you gave, which some make sense, some don't, but we'll go back through them. So the first, first enabler or driver engagement in your business that you have control of as a business leader— I think that's the important thing to mention, is that you have control over this— the first one is strategic narrative [11:25] Al Elliott: Strategic narrative [11:27] Leanne Elliott: Strategic narrative. The second is engaging managers. The third is employee voice. And the fourth is organisational integrity [11:37] Al Elliott: So, shall we go through these one by one?