By now, most executives and HR professionals know that employee engagement is both important and woefully lacking. But despite all the time and money invested into engagement initiatives, many organizations still aren’t moving the needle. Why?

Whenever I ask business leaders, “Whose job is engagement?” I usually hear one of these answers:

• The HR department owns it
• We hold our managers accountable

Both good answers, but partial answers.

According to IDG Research 43% of engagement comes from intrinsic motivation, by definition factors that are completely outside the influence of company mangers.

What is missing from many efforts to increase employee engagement, are the individual employees themselves.