SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Although many companies have responded to the recession by giving employees bigger workloads and fewer rewards, new data from leading leadership development firm Zenger Folkman actually shows an increase in highly committed employees.
“The change in workload and the loss of job opportunities has affected employee engagement,” says Joseph Folkman, co-founder and leader of the recent research. “People are becoming more polarized, making the decision to be highly committed or highly uncommitted.”
Prior to 2010, Zenger Folkman conducted a study on employee engagement. They found most employees fell into three distinct groups: uncommitted/unsatisfied, highly committed/satisfied, and fence sitters. When they conducted the study again in 2010, they found a surprising shift.
“Fence-sitting employees faced a choice of either becoming more engaged and satisfied with their work or more uncommitted and upset,” Folkman said.
Surprisingly, the percentage increase of highly committed employees was six times the increase in uncommitted employees. According to Folkman, this shift is positive sign that not all employees are giving in to hard times, but are many are fighting back.
Why, in a difficult year, would this increase in highly committed employees occur? Zenger Folkman studied this closely in a company that increased their employee satisfaction/commitment by 13 percentile points during the recession. Although the company focused on retention and maintained their values, the number one factor driving this increase was the effectiveness of leaders.
Data shows that poor leaders produce uncommitted/unsatisfied employees, but great leaders can create a larger group of satisfied and highly committed employees. The top behavior that differentiated those leaders with highly satisfied/committed employees was the ability to inspire and motivate others.
“The knee-jerk reaction of many leaders when they encounter difficulty is to drive harder for results; in other words they push harder,” Folkman explains. “However, the leaders who significantly increase the number of highly committed employees not only push, but more importantly pull by inspiring and motivating their employees to reach greatness in difficult times.”
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Zenger Folkman employs evidence-based methods that improve organizations and the people within them.
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