A recent Gallup study suggested that approximately 74% of all employees are either "unengaged or actively disengaged."
Assuming the statistics are correct, that means the average business organisation is operating with a loss of about one third of its potential effectiveness.
That's not taking into account the cost of missed business opportunities or lost customers, and certainly doesn't include the cost of sabotage and other acts of revenge disengaged employees might undertake to "get even" with an organization.
According to Dr Carlos A. Raimundo, psychiatrist, MBA and researcher in behavioural modification and neurophysiology, even the most reliable employees, if not truly engaged, can become robots.
"A robot is someone who maintains the cultural standard without adding ‘new life'," 
he said at a recent Ten Minutes to Clarity workshop. "Every human needs to know he or she is making a difference; contributing something unique which ultimately inspires new style and growth."
Raimundo went on to say that when employees feel they are simply maintaining rather than creating, they can develop a sense of entitlement for ‘enduring' the job; in which case, energy that might otherwise be directed to making an organisation more successful is diverted to negotiating compensations like salary increases, bonuses, or longer paid vacations.
Raimundo is an executive coach for major business corporations as well as welfare and church organisations worldwide. Speaking at the Australian Talent Conference 2008 in Sydney he suggested that Employee Engagement is directly linked to job satisfaction and to talent retention.
"People spend so many hours at work," he said, "it should be a place where the best of the person can be stimulated to emerge and develop. When employee commitment is more related to job security, prestige or dependency on a salary rather than to the function, task and work the person carries on in the company, the soul becomes disengaged. A person needs to be ‘seen'".
Raimundo believes that if people are pushed to work mechanically, more as robots than humans, they squash their gifts, special skills, talents and creative genius to such an extent that their work life is passionless. A life devoid of passion quickly becomes hard work, fatiguing and draining.
"A person's passion for using their talents is the power source that drives an organisation," he said, likening talent without passion to a car without fuel.
"A manager can either nurture that passion in each employee so that it propels the organisation forward or push it down so that it becomes a form of inward explosion, manifesting in ways that impede both the individual and the flow of the organisation. Talents need to be recognised and nurtured; skills need to be developed and refined. When people know how to manage relationships effectively and authentically, the passion of the employees will flow through the whole organization. They can be agents of transformational change among the people they manage. The work place can become the environment that stimulates people to flourish in life, rather than one that pushes people into a box."
Raimundo himself feels so passionately about this topic, he wrote a book entitled,
Relationship Capital (Prentice Hall, 2002). As the name suggests, the book explores the concept of achieving true success not just in business but in life generally, through managing relationships well. Raimundo feels that generally, people just need the right tools and training in order to develop the relationships they need to get optimum results in business and in life. To that end, he created a communication method called
Play of Life (PoL) for which he received the American Association of Psychodrama Innovator's Award in New York, 2004.
"The power of the PoL is that it quickly and efficiently opens windows to the Limbic System; the part of the brain where a person's talents and individual passions sit," he said.
In 2008, Raimundo joined forces with Martin Moroney, leading corporate communicating and interpersonal skills trainer, to incorporate PoL techniques into a series of programmes for business managers, financial advisors and leaders. They called it, aptly, Ten Minutes to Clarity. The workshops are designed to equip leadership and management with immediately applicable tools and techniques to get crystal clear information about team members' talents, organisational fit and leadership skills. According to Raimundo, the methodology also facilitates the discovery of issues that hinder talent development and block growth; helping individuals and teams establish a creative and innovative Corporate Culture.
"There's a creative genius in all of us longing to be discovered and nurtured," Raimundo said. "Ten Minutes to Clarity and its associated programmes spread a better sense of job satisfaction, accomplishment, creativity and innovation to make people feel engaged and passionate about their work."
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