WOW Word-Of-the-Week #506: Engaged
April 17, 2014 by Susan Clarke
Engaged – actively interested and involved.
Are you “actively interested and involved” in your job? Do you know anyone who is not engaged in their job and who “goes through the motions” just to get a paycheck? If your employer offered you $5000 to quit would you take it?
This week’s WOW comes from the LA Times article written by Ricardo Lopez titled, “Amazon to pay workers to quit: It will offer as much as $5000 to weed out unproductive or dissatisfied employees.”
Lopez writes, “Quitters wanted: Unhappy with your job? Feeling unproductive? Take $5000 and go. At least, that’s what Amazon. Com Inc. is offering its 
warehouse employees. Dubbed Pay to Quit, the program is offered once a year to employees who work in Amazon fulfillment centers.
“The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company,” says CEO Jeffrey Bezos.
Both Netflix and Zappos also offer bonuses to quit. They would rather have less-than-stellar employees leave with money in their pockets and fill their spots with more talented employees. The end result is to have a more engaged workforce.
A recent study of the American workplace by Gallup found that 70% of workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged,” workers who are simply going through the motions and counting down until the end of the workday.
Collectively, these employees cost the U.S. economy $450 billion to $550 billion a year in lost productivity, Gallup estimated.
This week’s focus is on being engaged. How many people do you work with that you would say are unproductive? How about dissatisfied? Would you say it is over two-thirds? How would it feel to work in a place where everyone is engaged and committed to their job?