Employee Engagement as rocket science

We were recently asked by a client “What exactly is it that differentiates organisations with great levels of engagement?”

A smart question, if a little difficult to answer! There are of course many factors contributing to employee engagement and these operate at different levels (the organisation; the team; the person) and vary across organisations and over time. However, one thing is for sure: where organisations have a fascinating purpose and provide opportunities for rich, meaningful and ground breaking work, then they have a major head start when it comes to engaging their people.

One such organisation is, of course, NASA.

Now we have all heard the old chestnut about JF Kennedy asking a cleaner at NASA what their job was and being told “gee sir, I have the best job in the world. I am helping to put a man on the moon!” but this vignette is now a little dated and a bit tatty with over-use. However, in the article attached, there is a great update on how NASA is aiming to keep its people engaged, particularly post-shuttle era, and in a time of more general uncertainty and change.

Whilst not every organisation is doing the kind of amazing work that NASA does, there are certainly some useful lessons here that can transfer anywhere.