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Don't Stress about Employee Engagement

By: Patrick Lunsford | 07/28/2011

Let's start today's conversation about employee engagement where most employee engagement discussions start — with baboons. You know, the primates with the long faces and protruding hairless bottoms (they kind of look like Rafiki in "The Lion King").

Baboons take center stage for their unknowing role in advancing the science of stress. Dr. Robert Sapolsky, one of the leading neuro-endocrinologists in the world and all-in-all genius, started studying Kenyan baboons in 1978. While watching the daily lives of the baboons, Sapolsky noticed the lower-status baboons looked unhealthier. His observations led him to focus on the effects of social upheaval and status in baboons, spurring a lifelong pursuit of researching how stress affects personal health (and the baboons are still teaching, showing up in another stress study in a July edition of "Science").

Sapolsky's pioneering work opened up new insights into stress and spurred research from others. What have we learned? As a "Wired" article on Sapolsky's work put it, "While stress doesn't cause any single disease ... it makes most diseases significantly worse ... In fact, numerous studies of human longevity in developed countries have found that psychosocial factors such as stress are the single most important variable in determining the length of a life. It's not that genes and risk factors like smoking don't matter. It's that our levels of stress matter more."

Here's where it gets interesting for employee engagement — research shows stress affects people differently, depending on their work environments, type of work performed and most importantly, level of control in how to do the jobs. Some examples: 

• While checking to see if an increased rate of cardiovascular disease in women was linked to more women entering the workforce, doctors found a correlation only when the women reported to an unsupportive boss or performed menial duties. According to the Wired article on Sapolsky, "The work, in other words, wasn't the problem. It was the subordination."
• The Whitehall study in London followed approximately 28,000 men and women for decades (starting in 1967). After years of analysis, the researchers coined the "demand-control" model of stress that basically says your level of damaging chronic stress depends on the demands of your job and how much control you have in response. One of the program's leads, Professor Sir Michael Marmot, wrote, "The man or woman with all the emails, the city lawyer who works through the night has high demands. But if he or she has a high degree of control over work, it is less stressful and will have less impact on health."

So, while all of the studies focus on mortality rates and health risks, the data also tells us a lot about how to engage employees (and extend life expectancies in the process). Simply, give them control.

I don't suggest executives hand over major business decisions to their entry-level staff. I do suggest managers need to find — or create — opportunities for their employees to control part of their work. It doesn't have to be "what" they do, but let them have a say in "how" they do it.

This can even go beyond daily responsibilities; managers can ask employees to form ad hoc teams around a challenge in the office (e.g., brainstorm thoughts to be more efficient, reduce carbon footprint, improve the culture, etc.). Give your people a problem (or ask them for one) and let them be in control of the solutions (this works for more neuroscience reasons than just stress, and I've seen it do some pretty cool things with manufacturing clients).

Other thoughts on how managers can give up some control? Any real-world examples come to mind?

(side note:  If you've read Dan Pink's "Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us," it's easy to see how the stress studies support his three elements for motivation: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. In an upcoming blog post or two, I hope to spend some more time on these elements and how communications can play a role.)

Posted in Employee Relations