Recognise This: No one is responsible for your engagement but you, but others can certainly influence your desire to engage.

Are you engaged at work? Are the people on your team? Are the employees generally at your company?

Who’s responsible for engagement at your company? More and more “employee engagement” is being added to job descriptions/responsibilities for HR professionals and sometimes to line managers. There are even very high level titles such as Senior Vice President for Employee Engagement at numerous companies.

Is this right? Is this fair? The right answer is “maybe.”

BlessingWhite’s latest employee engagement study summarised this well:

“Individuals must own their own engagement. If they do not know what’s most important to them, they will not find it in your workplace (or potentially any other).

“Managers can’t make employees engaged. They can act as coaches to facilitate their team members’ engagement journeys.

“Executives must set the direction that your workforce aligns to, communicate that direction to ensure a clear line of sight throughout your organisation, and create a culture that fuels engagement and business results.”

There’s a clear progression here. If executives don’t buy into engagement and promote it directly, managers can’t coach within an appropriate culture for engagement. Without that culture and coaching from managers, individuals are less likely to want to engage.

Where does your executive team stand on employee engagement? Are you like Sisyphus, pushing a rock up a hill you will never summit? Or are they at the top of the hill, pulling the rock up for you?