"Employee Engagement." Is this for real? Or is it another flavour-of-the-month term conjured up by management consultants and business schools to create business and justify their existence? 

Certainly you may be excused if you are confused.

After all even the experts have conceded that it is impossible to come up with a single, standard definition. It is all very well saying "you'll recognise it when you see it" but if there is no standard definition how can there be a standard solution? How do you know if you are addressing the underlying issues properly? 

So let's simplify things and go back to basics.

Let's move away from the term "employee engagement" and other topical phrases like "work-life balance" and think about what we are really talking about. Wouldn't you agree it is about having happy, satisfied employees? Thus it is about things like:-

• Employee commitment
• Employee diligence
• Employee loyalty

You would agree then that these could come under the umbrella of "employee morale," wouldn't you? So ultimately employee engagement is just another way of referring to employee morale. Well, Webster's Dictionary defines morale as:-

MORALE: (n) The moral condition or condition in other respects so far as it is affected by or dependent upon moral considerations such as zeal, spirit, hope, and confidence; mental state.

Now you will notice that the first element of morale is zeal, which Webster's dictionary defines as:-

ZEAL: (n) Eager interest and enthusiasm; ardent endeavour or devotion; ardour; fervour. 

The words that stand out here are "eager interest and enthusiasm." Napoleon Hill said that "Enthusiasm is the action factor of thought" while Ralph Waldo Emerson went further and claimed, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Would you not agree then, that what you are really looking for from your employees is enthusiasm and ardent endeavour - zeal?

Well, Zealise may be a made up word, but if it were to be included in the dictionary it would be defined as:-

ZEALISE: (verb) To create energy and enthusiasm; to inspire zeal.

So, what you are really looking for is a way to zealise your employees - to create the "ardent endeavour" that keeps them happy and simultaneously improves your productivity. And who better to help you on that than the people who understand the issues so well that they even coined the term!  

To find your "morale compass" and how we can help you assess your organisational zeal out go to ZAP or click here.

If you already know that your employee morale is not all that it should be and want to know more about the "morale code" that fuels the fusion of your organisational zeal and creates the morale climate that ensures your organisational integrity, go to ZIP or click here.  

Otherwise simply contact us directly, now.