A recent report from Deloitte suggested that 88 per cent of employees do not have passion for their work, and so won't contribute to their full potential.
Even worse, they found that 80% of senior managers aren’t passionate about their work.
The problem, according to Deloitte’s report, is that companies aren’t creating the type of environments where passionate workers can thrive.
Even if you have a powerful mission and your employees want to grow, many companies are hindering that creativity, even if they don’t realise it.
So the next question is how to create more questions. The report from Deloitte gave some tips on what to do.
* The report recommends that you help employees connect with other people at the company, and network with people outside of their workplace.
Workers that are passionate about what they do are always looking to connect with others to help them improve and solve problems.
* Allow employees to work on side projects, or even better, let them choose which projects they work on at work.
Workers with the questing attribute will always be looking for innovative ways to improve what they do. They’re constantly testing and experimenting with new ideas.
* Promote your purpose and allow employees to hear directly from customers, that can increase their commitment to domain. Passionate workers have a commitment to the domain they’re in, and are deeply committed to the work they do.
An article in officevibe.com also suggests a few tips to develop work engagement.
* Remove fear from the mind of the employees and get everyone in the company comfortable with failure and testing. This will develop a growth mindset.
* If someone is micromanaging and controlling every move they make, there is no way they will be able to develop passion and feel that excitement for what they are doing. Let the employees have autonomy.
* You need to actively encourage them to learn and help them by giving them the resources they need to learn more.
Set up a budget so they can buy books, courses, and anything that will help them grow. Invest in your employees.
Send employees to conferences if it will help them learn and connect with others.
Deloitte’s report also gave a few common myths that exist about passion for work.
* One myth that it found exists in among many people is that only younger workers could get passionate about what they do.
This is a pretty dangerous myth to have because what companies might do to solve this is focus on hiring younger workers, thinking they are more passionate than older workers.
Companies might also be overlooking older workers that have the passion they are looking for.
Younger workers were passionate, but sometimes passion comes with experience.
Age has nothing to do with it. It’s really all about creating the right type of environment for passion to exist.
* Another myth is that small companies have more passionate employees. Everyone has a vision of a fast-paced, young, cool startup company versus a stodgy, old, corporate company with tons of red-tape holding moving incredibly slowly.
It’s more about a company’s values, policies, and culture. The research found that large companies were just as good (or bad) at developing passion.
* Another myth that exists is that the more educated you are, the more passionate you are.
While it can be understood why this myth might exist, it is simply not true.
Again, everyone (regardless of education) has the desire and ability to develop passion. The most important part of building passion is the type of environment they are in.
