“Why does one organization get a reputation as a great place to work while another struggles to retain its employees?  It’s never a simple matter of one company paying more than another” states Dale Carnegie, author of the white paper, Building a Culture of Engagement.

Employee engagement is a hot topic for CIPD and HR professionals alike. Get it right and your employees are far more likely to go above and beyond for the organisation but get it wrong and the results can be catastrophic. Thinking of the news about the USA, this week, the topic of employee engagement could be hotting up even more than ever.The ongoing political boxing match on the other side of the Atlantic has resulted in more than 700,000 U.S. federal workers being told to go home involuntarily on what has charitably been described as ‘unpaid leave’.  They have been given no indication of when they might return, or indeed whether any compensatory pay will be provided.

While the political stakes are high, it seems undeniable that the direct personal effect on the morale of millions of government employees and their dependants will endure far longer than the period of the shutdown.  Employee engagement takes time to build, but can be permanently damaged when on one day you are told your actions are crucial to a company or indeed country and the next you are laid off without notice.  Examples of this jump out of almost every news report, with Gen. Keith Alexander of the NSA stating that the shutdown has “impacted us very hard” and had “a huge impact on morale”.  Victor Kimm, former director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water Program cited the precedent of the earlier 1996 shutdown saying, “It will certainly have an adverse impact on morale…that is not trivial.”

Perhaps the USA should have taken a look at the white paper above and heeded HR warnings. It’s no secret that disengaged employees are bad for business. Not only are they nearly 3 times as likely to take time off for sickness and have lower productivity rates than engaged members of staff but they also could be losing an organisation’s money in other ways. For example: sales leads that were not followed up in time, projects that go awry, not to mention the cost of replacing those who decide to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

What are the implications of this shutdown?  I doubt you’ll have to think hard for potential ramifications of this, so comment below and let us know what you think or perhaps what you as HR professionals would have advised instead…

On a cheerier note, the deadline for entries to our summer competition has now closed. We will be contacting our winner in the next few days.