What do employees want? Stop over-complicating it.

Have you ever thought this, “Why are my employees so unhappy? What do they want?”

In contrast to all of the current “15 steps to higher employee engagement” BS, it’s really not that complicated. Employees want to be involved and contribute whatever they can with both their heads as well as their hands. They want to have things they own, can see through to success and be proud of. And, they want to be appreciated for what bring to the table.

However, so many organizations kill it with bosses who command instead of engage, control instead of empower, and criticize instead of encourage. Just look at the numbers cited by Gary Hamel at the Peter Drucker Forum last year in Vienna:

Only 13% of employees around the world are engaged in their work
Per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70% of jobs in the US require little or no originality
Only 12% of employees in Europe say they’re consulted before objectives are set for their work
The average first level employee in a large organization is buried under 8 or more layers of management
50% of employees say they’ve had to change jobs to escape an incompetent or autocratic boss
In a global survey, 79% of respondents from large companies said new ideas get greeted with skepticism or hostility
In the same survey, 76% of respondents said political behaviors highly influence who gets ahead

We can do better, and as I said, it doesn’t need to be complicated.