It's all about engagement

While there is now a growing concern, and even refutation, of the annual rating of college and universities by U.S. News and World Report, we’d like to comment on a corollary to their “Best Colleges” rankings – another listing of colleges and universities that is not being criticized by the colleges themselves. A number of colleges and universities are now using the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The purpose of the survey is to assist educational institutions in determining “how and where they can improve the undergraduate experience on campus.” There are now 257 colleges and universities using this survey, including at least five in the Philadelphia region: Chestnut Hill College, Gwynedd Mercy, Temple, Ursinus, and Widener. According to the NSSE, taking part in certain activities (i.e., performing community service or tutoring other students) during college boosts students’ performance in many areas, such as thinking critically, solving real world problems, and working effectively with others. The NSSE is extensive in its measurements, and one of the primary issues being derived from it is the concern that too many students seem to not be engaged in their studies or preparation for their futures. To see how individual colleges are addressing this apathy, the NSSE considers five “benchmarks,” which can be used to compare the college’s effort against national averages for institutions of the same type. The benchmarks are:

• level of academic challenge
• active and collaborative learning
• student-faculty interaction
• enriching educational experiences
• supportive campus environment

CEC Associates’ interest in the topic is that there is, clearly, a direct correlation between the engagement of many young people in schools and new hires in the workplace. Prior to our awareness of the NSSE, we shared a brief book review through email with our readership on the same topic. The name of that book is Motivating the “What’s In It For Me?” Workforce (written by Cam Marston, John Wiley and Sons, 2007). The focus of that book is that effective management currently requires an awareness of generational differences and knowledge of the strategies needed to address those differences. That book includes a useful tool for managers confronted with generational issues. There is a “Quiz: Generational Voices, Who Am I?” that can be used to classify employees as “Mature, Boomer, Xer, or Millennial” as a guide to developing specific management strategies based on generational differences. Another resource for those interested in the generational reality of being engaged is the research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Talented Teenagers: The Roots of Success & Failure. Csikszentmihalyi takes a more positive approach by reporting, for example, on the results of his research regarding the “reasons for engagement.” By identifying the positive reasons, managers have still another approach to motivating employees. Is there, in fact, a troubling apathy in the workplace that is rooted in generational factors?