David Macleod, author of the Macleod Report to Government on Employee Engagement (May 2009), welcomes the white paper. "Employee engagement continues to be at the top of the strategic agenda for UK employers across all sectors. Initiatives that increase the focus on this vital subject are to be welcomed."

• The Confederation of British Industry has told the Government that engaging better with employees is the biggest challenge facing employers.
• Employers' engagement strategies primarily focus on work/life balance and pay-and-reward systems. This is making little impression on the problem because it misses the point. By far the biggest factor determining engagement is employees' relationship with their immediate manager, reflected in the day-to-day workplace atmosphere.
• Despite this, less than twenty percent of managers have received awareness and skills training in engagement and how to bring out the best in their people. This should now be an urgent priority for all employers seeking to improve engagement.
• The white paper recommends employers to base their engagement strategies on three underpinning facts: 'The Rules of Engagement'.

Rule 1. Engagement is founded on trust


Employers are making decisions to deal with the recession that have weakened employee trust. That trust needs to be rebuilt before there can be any significant improvement in employee engagement.

Rule 2. Engagement is driven by emotions


Recent discoveries from neuroscience and genetics supports extensive research by occupational psychologists that has emphasized the importance of emotions in decision making. Six key emotional drivers have been identified. Employers are generally paying insufficient attention to the role of emotions in people's decisions to engage or not.

Rule 3. Engagement is twenty percent culture and eighty percent climate


Most employers are focusing their engagement strategy on organizational initiatives such as flexible working. This is not producing significant improvements. By far the most important influencer is employees' relationship with their immediate manager, which accounts for around eight out of ten decisions to engage or not. People join companies; they leave managers. Yet, less than twenty percent of managers have received awareness and skills training in engagement and how to bring out the best in their people.

Nick Mitchell, author of the white paper and Chief Executive of the Training Foundation, comments, "Improving engagement is by far the most important thing that any employer can do. Disengaged workers impose an intolerable financial penalty, inhibit change, and prevent customer advocacy. The vast majority of employers who have a problem are aware of it; they just don't know how to solve it. The evidence, however, is now compelling.


We have been working with clients to improve their engagement metrics for some years, and the Engagement Project Team is confident that these three fundamental insights hold the key to a solution."