Yearning and Turning

So, I had my first Employee Engagement meeting today at work, but it wasn't as engaging as I'd hoped it'd be.

A month ago, we all took the Gallup Poll, and now that we have the results, we have to spend the next year figuring out how to maintain / improve on the scores. I've been appointed the new coordinator of this task for the year, which I was super excited about at first. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to make a difference and help people want to leap out of bed to get to work (I know I would like to feel this way each morning...). Today's meeting was rather drab, or maybe it was my fault -- maybe I wasn't as engaged or excited while I was talking about the questions. In fairness though, it's a tired process; a process that employees at Bank of Ireland have been having to endure for countless years. Plus, all the scores were above 4, and many above 4.5 (total score is 5).

Still, I thought it would be a good opportunity to figure out ways to spice up people's workload, working environment, and overall relationship with each other and with their managers. I'm not sure if I can achieve this. I have/had some ideas that I thought would be fun to do, things that I did for myself at my old job because it helped me relate more, but I'm not sure if it'll go down as fun with everyone (I tend to have a strange sense of humor compared to the masses...), still, I think I'll try it next month. Overall, everyone gets along great with everyone else on our team, but I do feel that a lot of people are lacking meaningful work, or even work in general, yet others are overwhelmed with a heavy workload. To me engagement is at a more personal level, and not really one that can be hashed out in a group environment...

Another piece of news that was disappointing to take today was that the one large project that my boss asked me to help with, he gave to another one of my co-workers, on the basis that I was going on vacation for 2 weeks. I had done a little bit of work on it, as much as I could for the time being (meetings and discussions need to take place at this point), but I was kind of hoping that I could do the project, whatever that might have entailed (building a new LGD model). I would like to learn more than I am, and plus, everyone around me is really smart with their mathematical degrees, and well, I'd like to feel like I'm contributing more, like they all get to do.