Engagement Exchange: Causes of disengagement that are typically overlooked (Part 1 of 8)

Sometimes the most common causes of low employee engagement aren't actually what is causing it on your team. Over 8 episodes we'll cover some of the less-obvious causes so you can take steps to mitigate them.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Christmal tacking your leadership today's discussion on
employee engagement. I want to go over an article that
I found talking about different causes of low employee engagement
that might be not at the top of mind for
a lot of leaders. Meaning, you know, if I'm a
leader of a team of people and I'm noticing low
employee engagement from either some or all of the team,

(00:21):
and I'm trying to approach it from the standpoint of,
you know, trying to make employees happier or trying to
provide them what they need. Maybe if those are the issues,
then maybe that will solve the problem. But if that
doesn't seem to be solving the problem, then the problem
could be rooted in something else. And these are some
issues that could cause low employee engagement that might not
be something that you, as a leader are thinking is

(00:43):
the reason, and it might not be something that your
team is articulating to you as the reason. Because these
are insidious things that don't necessarily they aren't necessarily problematic
when they happen individually or one time or one offs,
but when they add up over time and they're happening consistently,
it can lower engagement without an employee even realizing that

(01:04):
it's lowering their engagement. And so, because there's six different ones,
I want to go over them in six different episodes
because there's a lot in each of them that I
think is what would be good to hear. The first
thing that can cause low employee engagement that you might
not be aware of or you might not be thinking of,
is excessive red tape. And you know these are you know.
Red tape is basically what is you know, colloquially known

(01:27):
as unnecessary rules and procedures. And the reason why it's
framed as red tape is because by definition, that means
that they are unnecessary. But if you think about it
from an employee engagement standpoint, unnecessary is defined by the
person being asked to do it, not by the person
implementing it. And that is a problem. If the person

(01:51):
being asked to do something doesn't know why a rule
or a procedure is in place, and there might be
a very good reason for it, or there might not be.
If there isn't, then that's red tape. But if there
is a good reason for it, it's still red tape
in the mind of the employees. I unless you can
accurately define why that is a ruler procedure to them

(02:13):
in a way that makes them understand and get that
light bulb moment. If they don't understand it, they will
look at it as red tape and it will lower
their engagement. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, I think it's a great call out in the
fact that a lot of this is kind of maybe
perceived by an individual. There are plenty of times when
in my career maybe I've been frustrated and I feel like,
oh my gosh, this amount of red tape, even though
I know that there's a reason for it and that
it actually is is, you know, helpful in making sure

(02:41):
that whatever it is I'm trying to get done gets
done in the most effective way. But I can be
impatient and I can feel like this is just taking
too long and I want to get it done now,
you know, so, I for sure it's definitely a perception thing.
I think though, where I've maybe grown or understood better
is what you mentioned. Somebody takes the time to explain

(03:01):
it like this is. We know that it slows this down.
We know that it takes longer for a decision to
be made, and that's intentional and it's for these reasons,
and if you're looking to move at that pace, then
also understand that, like you have to build in the
fact that this is going to be how it's going
to be. I think where the red tape can be

(03:21):
really frustrating is when there's a process that's in place
that nobody's even validating or checking. They're just you know,
clicking a box or a link or an approval without
even actually reading it. And then it's like, well, then
why do we even have it? You know, like like
what's the point of this if it's just going to
slow me down on getting something done? Or if you

(03:45):
say to me, hey, you're responsible for these things, but
then every time I need to make a decision on
this thing, I have to call somebody or talk to
somebody else about it. Well, then technically I'm not responsible
for it. The other person is because I have to
call it every single time, you know, like, so which
one is it? And I think those are the things
where that's where I think it. You know, if you're

(04:07):
thinking about how do you reduce or eliminate some of
the red tape, it's in the fact of like, well,
who is actually responsible for this? And if it is
this individual, then they should be the one that can
make the quickest, most final decision. Of course, if they
want to, you know, collaborate a partner like, that's totally
on them, but they should be the one to make
that final decision if in fact they are the one

(04:28):
responsible for it. If they're not, then it needs to
be super clear that they are not and that this
other person is responsible for it. That way, you can
realize that it's not red tape, it's just the process
that we have.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Right for sure. I want to go over some of
the things that you, as a leader can do to
try to lessen the amount of perceived or actual red
tape with your team members if that's what is lowering
their engagement as they're going through their days. I'm going
to go through a couple of them, but first let's
give it up towards front of our sponsors. All Right,
if you're a leader of people and you're trying to
make sure that your team has an actual or even

(05:03):
perceived lowering of what they think that the amount of
red tape is going on, that might be lowering employee engagement.
The two things that I think are most important are one,
get rid of your own ego when it comes to
being questioned on why something is happening. If a person
is being asked to do something and they're perceiving red
tape and they ask you, why do I have to

(05:25):
do it this way, it's possible that you might not
have an answer. You might not know why this is
being asked to be done in this way, and it
could be because from your perspective, you don't know what
the answer is. But because you assume positive intent from
your organization or from your leader, you follow and do
the procedure because you just in your mind, you're thinking, Okay,

(05:48):
I have enough history and experience here where I understand
that I might not know the reason right off the
top of my head, but I know there is a
good one, and I'll eventually get to know what that
reason is. Right now, I don't know what the reason is,
but I'm going to assume positive tent and follow anyway.
Your team might not have that same perspective. They might
not want to do anything without knowing the why behind it,
and so if you're questioned on that why, you don't

(06:08):
know the answer. A lot of leaders can have a
tendency to get defensive on that, like why why are
you asking these questions? Why do you need to know this?
This is what the responsibility is, this is your job
as a person to do this. And that is not
going to raise employe engager. That's going to lower it
even further because one they see right through it, they
think that either you're a shill for your organization, you
drink the kool aid, or you don't know what the

(06:30):
answer is and you're trying to hide it. And likely
it's the second one and not the first one. But
if you can you avoid that ego trap and approach
it from the standpoint of saying, hey, you know, I
don't actually know the answer to that. I can give
you examples of times when I've had experiences with this
company and it's worked out the right way. I will
do my best to find out the actual reason. Why.

(06:53):
Will you trust in me and let's work through this
together and get through it, and you have my word
that I will find out the reason behind this and
I'll come back to you. That's a great way to
approach it. If you don't know the answer, or if
there's a real answer, then give it to them. If
you know what it is. The second thing you can
do when it comes to lowering the red tape is
back in line to what Lorenzo was saying. When it
comes to whether or not something is someone's responsibility or

(07:14):
somebody else's responsibility. There's a term that I heard a
long time ago, and it doesn't sound very fun, but
sometimes it can be a very effective tool. That tool
is called malicious compliance, and malicious compliance means that when
there is a rule or a procedure in place that's
causing a lot of problems, and you believe that the
problems that it's causing have never been addressed because this

(07:38):
thing has to change. The best way that you can
make sure that the people responsible for making those changes
understand there's a problem is to follow that procedure or
that rule literally to a t to do it exactly
the way the system wants you to do it. Because
when you do workarounds that avoid that rule or a
procedure to avoid the pain of what it's causing, you

(08:00):
also don't you also fail to let the people know
who make those procedures. You fail to let them know
that there's a problem to address to begin with, because
if the procedure is wrong, if it is red tape
that needs to go away because it was something that
was written or or figured out years ago, and it's
a remnant of something and it does need to go away.
The more you actually follow it and allow those problems

(08:24):
to happen that are the result of doing it correctly,
the much faster the people responsible for those procedures will
see those issues and think, Okay, this is an actual problem,
we need to change this. A lot of problems and
a lot of organizations go on far longer than they
have to because individual people come up with their own
solutions and workarounds to things, and that prevents the people

(08:46):
who make the strategy. It prevents them from ever knowing
there was a problem to begin with, or prevents them
from knowing it for a lot longer period of time.
And so going through those two things as a leader,
that can raise employee engagement if it's being lowered by
a perception of excessive red tape. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I think the communication part of this is a key
aspect and kind of sharing up when you see things
you know. I think it's can be sometimes it can
be really easy to play the like, well it is
what it is, or this is how things are or
I've had to deal with it like that can be easy,
but that's actually not great, and that can cause a
lot of cultural issues and problems because it does two things.

(09:25):
Number one, it it has your team believe that that
there's no possibility of change or an evolution or adjustment
based upon the needs of the team or like the
needs of.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
A customer or whatever.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
It Also it's delegating your authority. It's basically saying like,
I put my hands up, nothing I can do here,
when in fact, there's always something you can do. The
answer might be no, but you might actually get some
information or more context or an understanding or you know,
it could be it could be something legally that has
to happen that you're just not aware of. But like,

(09:58):
it's such an important all out to share these kind
of insights and these thoughts and where things get slowed
down and where it becomes frustrating when it comes to
what needs to happen, even if it's just to understand
why it has to be that way. That can be
super helpful in not having people take it personal or

(10:18):
feel like it's red tape. But there's a legitimate reason
why we do it this way, and I think if
that happens, people can then plan for understanding what needs
to happen in the future and have less frustration or
less belief that red tape is causing the issue right right.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
This issue happens a lot more often in places of
work where you have a mix of people who are
doing their career versus just doing a job. So if
you look at retail and service industry, you know you
have leadership team members who are there in their career
and they maybe not there forever, but at least at

(10:54):
some point they made the decision I want to see
how far I can take this, and so they're bought
in and they're leading people, some of whom are in
the same boat. They're bought in also and they want
to take this long term or they want to see
how far they can grow it. They also have people
that are there because they just need to pay their
bills while they're going to college, or you know, they
want some spending money, or you know, whatever it is.
And those people are far less likely to just assume

(11:17):
positive intent from their organization. They're far less likely to
just be like, oh, well, I don't know what the
reason is, but obviously they have a good reason for it,
So let's just follow what they say. You know, that
doesn't work for a lot of people. They need to
know the why. If they don't get it. If they
don't if they can't connect the dots themselves to understand
why they're being asked to do something, they will ask.
And if you give them a real answer and it

(11:39):
is true, then it's obviously very easy to connect the dots.
It might have be the answer to looking for, but
if it's a true answer, it can help them get
through that. But the people who are bought in to
the organization already because they're trying to make a career,
they're far more likely to assume that positive intent and
go with the flow for a longer period of time,
following a policy, your procedure, even if they don't quite

(12:02):
perfectly understand why it's in place, hoping that the result
will be the result that they're looking for. But even
they will have a point of a breaking point. Even
people who are bought in being asked to do something
for a long period of time without understanding it and
without seeing the results or the fruits of that labor.
After enough time, even they will get to a point

(12:22):
where they think this isn't working for me, and now
I need to know why because something isn't connecting. And
so your job as a leader is to make sure
that your people are connecting the dots, whether they need
it right away or they can go a little bit
longer before connecting them. If they're not connecting, it will
lower their engagement pretty quickly when they perceive this excessive
red tape. Thank you all for joining us on this discussion.

(12:43):
We'll continue this discussion with the next line item in
this kind of insidious employee engagement problems on the next episode.
You have a good day.