Is Engineering At Odds with Engagement?

Knowing how important it is for industrial companies to maintain impetus in keeping pace with social demand, there's a lot of history to get over since the days of iron and steam. We live in a world of paradox, where good intentions are fraught with dangers and trust in leadership fades quicker than cooling coal.

People want to live their best lives, love their workplace and be active in creating reality, well aware that Life is in our hands and there is much more we could do with it, given the opportunity. Everywhere, the pressure's on to stand for nothing less than what makes us happy and step up to the plate in personal welfare. While we busily seek out the best, we're increasingly prepared to put our cards on the table, understanding that making positive changes to the things we do means making the most of what we have.

All this said, those in power may be disconcerted by such rumblings underfoot, still intent on taking down 'low-hanging fruit' and keeping the proles in order. Traditions die hard - the hard line being what most shop-floor managers were taught to take as they came up through the ranks, dragging it along against a tide of better working practice. Given this wall of potential resistance, new ways of thinking can be fun to adopt, given the right encouragement, and easy to implement, given the right kind of ground.

Higher productivity is found to be synonymous with happy people, profitability thus depending on the health of a company's culture.

70% of Corporate Change strategies go to the wall before reaching the culture, for reasons given above. The more things stay the same, the more an awful lot of people seem to like it. Fear of change spells resistance to even the most reasoned of new approaches to old problems, an awkwardness for the engineering sector that needs to be overcome. Filled with bright sparks wanting to shine, company cultures wait in abeyance... with new recruits in engineering to come by while dissatisfaction with corporate edicts leads to spiralling levels of attrition.

Waiting for engagement to take off on a dictum is like trying to fly a kite in light breeze while standing still. A few feet up, it'll crash back down again. You have to impart some kinetic energy by covering a bit of ground yourself! Employee engagement takes time and impetus; in other words, motivation from within. People have to see personal benefit from giving their personal best. That's why WorldLine programmes score way above average uptake responses - with three months' experiential evidence of improvement under their belts, who would want to go back to the way things were before?

Directorships need accountability, and need also to put motivational investment into things that matter to employees. People want trust, respect and autonomy demonstrated real-time to raise morale, and for initiatives to stick when it comes to cultural commitment. We have to admit that responsibility is a real thing needing to be taken, for serious benefits to be realised in a future promising only to be different from the past.

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