Employee engagement is one of the crazy buzzwords of the moment. Actually, more like of the last several years. A lot of employers and managers are feeling discouraged, fed up, and just plain down about the dismal numbers in Gallup’s employee engagement polls. With only 30% of the U.S. workforce categorized as “actively engaged” and $450-550 billion in lost productivity dollars per year from symptoms of disengagement, who wouldn’t feel borderline desperate to get a larger slice of the engagement pie? With all that hunger for a little more mozzarella, there’s oodles and doodles of advice out there on how you can up your company’s engagement. In this month’s 5 Fascinating Finds feature, we’ve rounded up five articles that’ll tell you everything you need to know without wading through an endless sea of “Top 10 Tips.” Take a gander at these premium articles with varied but insightful advice and decide what works best for you!

Flash back to your high school years.  You’re sitting in class listening to your teacher drone on about isotopes, when you hear the words, “group project.”  Naturally your stomach lurches at the thought of this upcoming assignment. You can already feel the fatigue from having to pull more than your fair share of the workload and are already dreading the inevitable personality conflicts that will ensue. 

The disengaged employee - You can spot them a mile away. Their "can't do" attitude and general unpleasantness sours nearly every cubicle or meeting room they walk into. According to Glassdoor, seventy-percent of the American workforce is comprised of individuals who are “checked out” of their work responsibilities and sleepwalking through their career.

As a self-proclaimed brand spankin’ new employee of Baudville, Friday was my very first Employee Appreciation Day at the ‘Ville. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Friday was my first Employee Appreciation Day ever… It’s not like this is my first year in the workforce, it’s just that I’ve never worked anywhere that so much as batted an eyelash for Employee Appreciation Day. Man are those employers AND employees missing out because Friday was my favorite workday of the year so far!!

If you've been keeping up on your business reading, you've probably noticed that employee engagement is the topic du jour. Why? Much like the tolls of a natural disaster, we can't help but talk about it. The numbers are shocking.