I’ll be headed to Grand Junction, Colorado in a couple months, going back to a place I love going to.  I’m conducting a three hour Employee Hold’em Seminar, similar to others I have conducted in the past.  This one will be somewhat different, as we are concentrating on the information in our next book, Employee Engagement Fundamentals: A Guide for Managers and Supervisors and providing much more information on the financial linkage between workforce engagement and company financials, including one of my clients who saves $425,000 with every one percent decrease in turnover we are able to achieve (23% reduction so far… do the math!).

I just received my final analysis on the 2008-9 Employee Hold’em National Workforce Engagement Benchmark, so I’m beginning to finalize upcoming presentations, press releases, and the second edition of my first book.  So, what’s new in this year’s results?

Employees in the Mountain Census Region have the second highest level of engagement of the nine regions.  47% of employees are Fully Engaged, 32% are Reluctant, and 21% are Unengaged.  While just half of the employees in the 2006-7 benchmark planned to stay with their organization even if they were offered a little more money to go somewhere else, the number jumped to 80% in the current benchmark.

And here’s why.

There are two main drivers of workforce engagement for employees in the mountain census region, two specific areas where employers have to perform well in order to engender the commitment and loyalty of their employees;  Daily Satisfaction and Reputation Management.

Daily Satisfaction is defined as the ability of managers and supervisors to recognize what motivates employees to come to work each day, ensure working relationships are positive, allow for autonomy and discretion in job performance, show respect to employees, and maintain a high performance, enjoyable workplace.

Reputation Management is defined as the ability of organizational leaders to shape and manage the organization’s reputation internally and externally; identify and describe strengths of the organization’s products, services, and solutions; and exercise positive corporate social responsibility.

Why is engagement so high with these employees?  Because their perform very well in these areas.  Cause and Effect.  Let’s review the causes.

In regards to Daily Satisfaction, Mountain employees rate their organizations higher than any other region in each of the following areas:

• Good relationship with immediate supervisor
• Job provides feelings of personal accomplishment
• Enjoy coming to work
• Good fit between my skills/interests and job

In the area of Reputation Management, employees in the Mountain region rated their organization higher than any other region in these areas:

• Leader in its industry
• Good corporate citizen
• Products and services highly regarded
• Company treats employees well

And finally, in each of the three indices we calculate from the survey data,  the Supervisor Index, Communication Index, and Fairness Index, Mountain employees again rated their employer #1 across any other region in the country.

Trust me, it’s more than nice weather and clean air…  Employers in Colorado (and Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) get it.

Does your company?