Most Critical Question in Your Company or Organization: What Is Engaging or Disengaging People?
Employees, customers, and other stakeholders decide with their choices who will survive and succeed and who will not. Is your business, brand, or organization one of those people engage in or one of those they avoid?
The most fundamental question of a company, a brand, or an organization concerns people's engagement: What root causes increase loyalty or loss among employees, customers, or other stakeholders? What makes employees motivated and productive or causes productivity to collapse? What creates an active relationship with customers? What accelerates positive change and what stops it?
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The problem is significant. According to McKinsey, a third of European workers are considering quitting in the near future. The challenge also applies to Finland. Barona's survey 2023 says that 37 percent of Finns are thinking about changing jobs, as many as 44 percent of those under 40.
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Transformations are particularly challenging. According to Harvard Business Review, 70-90 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail, and Deloitte says that "most of the barriers to a successful integration are related to people and company culture". According to Deloitte, "many merger and acquisition (M&A) deals have inherent retention issues resulting from negative attitudes often felt by employees".
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The price tag of customer loyalty is also high. ​The cost of losing customers has been known for a long time. According to Harvard Business Review, "acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one".
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Facts About Root Causes for Engagement Are Needed
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In terms of survival and success, nothing is more critical than knowing the reasons behind engagement and disengagement.
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This crucial information guides actions to allocate your resources rationally. To build commitment, competitive edge, and protitable, sustainable growth.
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The importance of sustainability as a cause for engagement or avoidance is growing all the time. The weights and effects of the components of sustainability (environmental, social, and governance) vary case-by-case. A list of general ESG requirements says nothing about what engages people and what doesn't. And especially not about what the situation in a particular company or organization is – and what should be invested in.
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Traditional surveys don't understand engagement
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If you want to identify the reasons behind engagement and avoidance, and act on that understanding, traditional surveys are useless.​
The fact is based on science: satisfaction or in general the positivity or negativity of experiences say nothing about engagement. Engagement is a completely separate dimension of behavior. Satisfied people are not engaged.
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​Engagement is based on emotions – emotions have a decisive influence on behavior and decision-making. If you want to understand engagement and loyalty, you need to understand emotions, the root causes of emotions, and the effects of emotions on commitment.
Satisfaction – or contentment – is merely one of the human emotions. It is often used to describe the positivity or negativity of an experience in general. In both cases, the amount of satisfaction does not correlate with engagement.
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The 20 emotions in the picture come from a method developed at the University of Geneva. It covers the human emotion space in a comprehensive way. NayaDaya Inc. uses this scientific model in its own Empathy Analytics™.