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Are You Engaged in the Work That You Do?

Guest post by: Alvah Parker

Article Overview: Why is being engaged in your work important? First and foremost it makes your work interesting and fun. You are more likely to be making significant contributions to the work you do and thus your job is more secure. You are the employee everyone wants to hire!

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Are You Engaged in the Work That You Do?

Let's talk a little bit about engagement. Not the kind you have before you get married. I mean engagement in the work you do. From my perspective that is what makes work interesting and fun. Are you really engaged in the work that you do?

The latest Gallup survey shows that only 28% of Americans feel engaged by their work. If you are engaged in your work, you feel energized about the work and look forward to it each day. Sure sometimes the work is monotonous or stressful but overall you are emotionally connected to what you are doing.

When I was a very little girl my father who was an engineer would come home from work each day and go for a walk. Often he would take me with him. My mother would stay home to finish making dinner but she always told me as we left for the walk "Don't talk to your father until he talks to you." As we walked my father was usually lost in thought. I followed my mother's directions and most evenings by the time we had turned around to return home he was talking to me.

I later realized that the walk allowed my father to slowly disconnect from work. In the first 30 minutes of the walk he was still working on the solution to a problem he had had at work.

There were days when he didn't talk until we got home and we were eating dinner. On those days he usually told my mother about the difficult problem he was trying to solve. Now that is an example of someone really engaged in his work. For my father work was totally absorbing and enjoyable. (Maybe my father's engagement is a bit too much for some of you. Engagement during working hours is what is important here.)

A client I worked with some years ago came to me because he said he wanted to start a business. His girl friend at the time was frustrated because he kept talking about starting it but never did anything about it. She hired me (with his permission) to get him going.

I've learned since that this is not a good arrangement. A client rarely becomes engaged in coaching if someone else is paying for it.

Initially this client worked hard to clear up some debt that he didn't want his girl friend to know about. He felt hiding the debt from her was holding him back in starting the business.

Once he had a workable plan to eliminate the debt he lost his interest in coaching and starting a business. Because he was no longer engaged in the process he stopped the coaching.

Why is being engaged important? First and foremost it makes your work interesting and fun. My father loved his work. He couldn't wait to start in the morning and it took him time in the evening to stop thinking about it. What employer wouldn't love that?!!

My client on the other hand was engaged when he worked on what was important to him (eliminating his debt) but once that was complete it became clear that starting his own business was not something he really wanted. .

If he had been working in a job, my client probably would have gone through the motions of the job without adding a lot of value to his work. Based on the Gallup research 54% of Americans go to work each day and do just the requirements of the job, nothing more. Worse still are the 17% that are actively disengaged meaning they are unhappy and tell everyone how miserable they are.

So how are you doing? Are you engaged in the work that you are doing? What are you doing to insure that you are engaged and making a contribution daily to the organization you work for? If you are someone who does the hiring for your company, how do you determine who the engaged, self motivated people are?

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Article Tags: add value, Engaged, Gallup survey, job, job security, self motivated

About the Author: Alvah Parker
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Alvah Parker is a Practice Advisor (The Attorneys’ Coach) and a Career Changers’ Coach as well as publisher of "Parker’s Points", an email tip list and "Road to Success", an ezine. Subscribe now to these free monthly publications at her website http://www.asparker.com/samples.html and receive a free values assessment. Work becomes more meaningful and enjoyable when you work from your values. Alvah Parker began her career as a high school chemistry teacher. She later transitioned to a sales career at AT&T. As a Sales Professional at AT&T for 15 years she was elected to the prestigious Counsel of Leaders for the top 3% of the sales force. After leaving AT&T she transitioned into a coaching career. Alvah is a senior coach for Boxwood Technology where she coaches association members on career issues and also a SCORE Business Counselor where she advises and counsels small business owners. Parker’s Value Program© enables her clients to find their own way to work that is more fulfilling and profitable. Her clients are attorneys, entrepreneurs, managers and people in transition who want to find work that is in line with their own values. Alvah is found on the web at http://www.asparker.com. She may also be reached at 781-598-0388.

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