My company conducted an employee engagement survey (EES) recently. The purpose of the EES is to measure staff engagement level, by gathering employees’ feedback on work environment and organisational culture, the key drivers of EES score.
If my memory serves me right, I first came across this concept of being “engaged” when I did my first EES more than fifteen years ago. That was when I learnt that an employee can be “engaged” or “disengaged” at work, which will then have a corresponding impact on his or her work performance and therefore, organisational performance. Prior to that EES, being employed by an organisation to me largely just meant: “I just work here”.
I must confess that I had a very slow awakening to an understanding of the concept of “engagement” at work. I guess it is because it has a lot to do with a sense of identification with the organisation’s vision and mission, as well as a sense of purpose and passion for the work that one does. When a staff is newly employed, especially if he or she is just fresh out of school, that employee’s key performance indicators (KPIs) will most likely just be to deliver what the boss says to do. It is likely that it will be only after working in the organisation for some time before that employee can begin to:
- appreciate the goals and direction of the organisation;
- find meaning and significance in the role that he or she plays; and
- believe that he or she, in that role, can and does indeed contribute to the organisation’s KPIs.
And so, the level of engagement is a matter of the degree of alignment between the organisation and the individual – the greater alignment, the greater the motivation, and correspondingly, the greater the sense of engagement.
It is desirous to have a high engagement level, but it takes a real effort for a staff to be and remain engaged, for there is a high cost to a person’s attention, focus and commitment. In the area of work, an organisation may throw in external incentives such as bonuses, promotion and recognition to motivate staff, and those are fair exchanges for a staff’s continued deployment of his or her knowledge, resources, and talent for the organisation’s use and benefit.
But when it comes to the area of faith and God, there is a dramatic shift of the balance of power. To be and remain engaged with God is now solely to the individual’s benefit and for his or her own good. The high cost is now on the individual who loses his or her attention, focus and commitment toward God. Thus the motivation now must come from the individual and it must stem from within, and is of the internal, and not the external. And thus, the questions turn from:
“What can you do for me?” and “What do you have to offer me?”
to
“What can I do to stay engaged with God?”
God’s call to man has always been:
“Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
“Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).
And there have been people of God who have responded:
David said, “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast” (Psalm 57:7).
The men of faith of old, “not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).
Paul said, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Their degree of engagement, focus and commitment is awe-inspiring. They were choice examples of people who translated their core conviction from within outwardly into a lifetime of resolute and tireless pursuit after God.
My prayer to God is that
“God, may You keep me as the apple of Your eye, and hide me under the shadow of Your wings. May You train my sight to be engaged and locked on You alone, despite the many distractions, the whirlwind and the storm. May You fill my vision the moment I open my eyes, and may You be the last thing I see when I close my eyes to sleep.
May the glory of who You are burn in my soul.“
And “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
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