How can we raise the work engagement level?
We spend a lot of our life at work. Quite a few people may expect their work to be worthwhile or interesting. However, unfortunately, based on international comparative research on work engagement, it has become clear that the level of work engagement among Japan’s businesspeople is significantly low.
While the term “work engagement” may be unfamiliar, research has shown that it relates to three elements: vigor, dedication, and absorption.
“Vigor” means being lively by getting vitality through working, “dedication” means finding meaning in work, or proactively trying to work on something out of one’s own initiative. “Absorption” is sometimes called “flow” in psychology. It indicates that one is so focused that one forgets that the time is passing during work.
In other words, work engagement is not just how long one is engaged in work, but about how much an individual can focus on and proactively engage in work, or a measurement of feeling or attitude for an individual’s work.
Moreover, when work engagement is not felt, it will have a major impact on an employee’s entire life satisfaction and happiness as well as vitality for an organization.
In fact, positive psychology, which is one of my research areas, identifies the five elements of PERMA: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationship, Meaning, and Accomplishment/Achievement. The elements of PERMA are widely related to life satisfaction and “engagement” is one of the elements.
As we have seen, work engagement greatly affects both our work and personal lives. So, how can we strengthen it?
In this article, I will focus on three elements of inclusion, psychological safety, and inclusive leadership as the keys to work engagement.
Nowadays, I suppose many of you businesspeople have heard the word “inclusion” more frequently, along with the word “diversity.” Inclusion means each individual in a team or an organization can feel that they are accepted and respected. Moreover, according to research on inclusion, inclusion is closely linked to two elements: belongingness and uniqueness.
Belongingness means one being able to feel that they have their own place as a member of a team or an organization. Uniqueness means one can display one’s unique attributes or characteristics in a team, and can feel that one’s character is respected by other members.
Japanese society, as we see in the term “peer pressure,” sometimes appears to have a tendency to secure belongingness by suppressing uniqueness. However, in order to promote the culture of inclusion at the workplace and increase the level of work engagement, it is necessary for leaders and organizations to have awareness to value both belongingness and uniqueness.
In addition, it is also important to understand diversity in a broad sense to encourage inclusion. Diversity is translated as “tayosei” in Japanese. It is often associated with nationality, culture, gender, disability, LGBTQ, etc. During the D&I training seminar, participants often mention “it does not apply to me, but…” or “I cannot afford to think that far,” for example. In other words, the challenge of D&I is that people find it difficult to feel the issues as a personal matter.
However, diversity is, in the broad sense, not only about a group of people with different appearance or attributes, but also those with different values, ways of thinking, positions, and/or experiences. For instance, even among Japanese people, their ways of thinking, values, or perspectives can differ dramatically. They may sometimes feel alienated when their opinions are not heard, or feel lonely at a new workplace. If we understand diversity broadly, everyone must have experienced a feeling of minority in one sense, or a feeling of alienation. Through these personal experiences, I think it is important to expand the empathy for the various difference of others.
Psychological safety is important for organizations and individuals
When you hear the term psychological safety, you might think of a place where everybody feels safe. However, it is a little different in reality. Psychological safety originally indicates a state in which an individual can feel safe enough to take a risk in an organization. For instance, “it is ok for me to express my opinion which is different from all others” or “I can point out issues without hesitation to my boss or a team.”
For example, if an individual frankly says “excuse me, I cannot help feeling uncomfortable about this plan,” will the boss or the team listen and be open to it? This is an important point. In other words, the essence of psychological safety is an environment where trying or taking a risk is allowed without fear of failure.
This is important not only for individual work engagement but also for organizations. In a team with high psychological safety, members trust each other that taking a risk will not lower their evaluation nor aggravate personal relationships.
Conversely, it is said that when psychological safety is low, people cannot point out problems or flaws, leading to adverse situations where organizational cover-ups become normal, causing project failures or corporate scandals. Therefore, for healthy organizational management, ensuring psychological safety cannot be dismissed.
So, in order to secure inclusion and psychological safety in teams and organizations, what is important? There are various relevant elements, but here I would like to introduce inclusive leadership.
Inclusive leadership will be necessary in future D&I
While I have engaged in research on global human resources in multicultural society so far, in addition to that, I am currently interested in the practice of and research on inclusive leadership, or leadership under which people from various backgrounds can safely exercise their ability.
Inclusive leadership means leadership which aims for people with various characteristics and differences to be able to feel that they are accepted and respected, and safely exercise their abilities. The existence and impact of leaders in organizations is enormous, and in a place where people with different backgrounds and experiences work together, whether a leader respects the differences or whether a leader imposes a certain way will significantly influence people’s work engagement and willingness.
So, what can be done to improve inclusive leadership? The first point is to admit that one is imperfect and weak. For those who associate “leader” with strong leaders leading subordinates, it may sound paradoxical. However, wouldn’t leaders who have always tried hard to overcome their incompleteness and weakness also expect their subordinates to have similar perfection and efforts? Conversely, if they can admit that they are imperfect, they can rely on someone, and it becomes easier to appreciate the person’s help and contribution. As a result, people will help each other, taking advantage of their features in a team or organization. In other words, inclusive culture can be nurtured.
The second point is related to the previous point: that is to value inner diversity within oneself. “Inner diversity” here indicates various aspects of oneself that lie inside. For instance, as a boss, while one may positively think “I am trying hard in my own way and want to exert leadership under which everybody can exercise their ability,” one may disappointingly think “I am trying so hard but no one recognizes it,” and one may also feel constrained thinking, “it is difficult to be who I am when I am a leader.” Thus, “value inner diversity” means that the existence of various aspects of oneself is meaningful, and it is to recognize that each aspect is precious. If one thinks inside, “no way can I admit that I am weak!” it means that one gently accepts such part of oneself as well.
Why, then, is it important to value inner diversity? Because one’s attitude to oneself will be reflected in the attitude to others outside. For instance, if one believes, “I should not cry because I am a man,” one may be irritated to see other men crying. In psychology, we call this “projection.” Feeling that way about others is, in fact, caused by one seeing part of oneself in the other and feeling it is unacceptable.
When one starts to be able to accept various aspects of oneself, one will become tolerant to various people outside oneself and be able to naturally exercise inclusive leadership. In fact, research suggests that a leader’s self-acceptance contributes to a team’s psychological safety and trust building. Therefore, I believe, firstly to recognize one’s inner diversity and value this is an important step to nurturing inclusive culture and improving each individual’s work engagement.
* The information contained herein is current as of October 2024.
* The contents of articles on Meiji.net are based on the personal ideas and opinions of the author and do not indicate the official opinion of Meiji University.
* I work to achieve SDGs related to the educational and research themes that I am currently engaged in.
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