I have followed the Gallup organization’s annual employee engagement survey for several years. Gallup says, “This survey measures the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace.”

So, the happier and more fulfilled the employees are, the more productive they are, and their happiness helps a company achieve its goals and outperform its competition.

The 2024 survey shows that engagement levels in the U.S. hit a decade-low in 2024, with only 31% of employees actively engaged and 17% actively disengaged, mirroring figures from 2014. These levels represent a downward trend greatest among workers under 35 – Gen Z.

Actively engaged describes employees who are happy and motivated about what they do and perform at their best to help achieve the company’s goals. Actively disengaged employees generally don’t like what they do, are not team players, and have no sense of company loyalty or desire to help the company be successful.

This survey may, at first, seem not to have any impact on the Masonic fraternity. Still, there are some critical factors Masonic lodges face in member engagement that are similar to those encountered in the workplace.

The Gallup survey highlighted some key factors contributing to the decline in employee engagement. These three have a clear impact on whether someone is engaged or not.

• Employees were not clear about what was expected of them. Only 46% understood.
• Employees felt that they were not cared for as a person. This feeling declined by 8%.
• Employees felt they weren’t encouraged in personal development. Down 6%

As they might relate to your lodge, these three factors can be explored by first asking three questions.

• Do your members understand your lodge’s purpose and mission and how they may contribute to achieving it? You want each member to be able to say, “I know why my lodge exists, what we are trying to accomplish, and I know how best to use my talents to help our lodge to be successful.”

• Does your lodge environment allow members to build relationships and enable everyone to feel motivated, appreciated, and supported? You would like each brother to say about lodge night, “I wouldn’t miss going. I return home happy from being around men for whom I care, and they care for me.”

• Does your lodge have programs that provide for Masonic education and personal development? You want a brother to say, “I have become a much better person because of what I learned from my brothers and Masonry.”

In his book The Culture Code – The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel Coyle spent four years visiting and researching eight of the world’s most successful groups. From his research, he found that each of these groups had an exciting chemistry and built a culture of strong connections. Coyle describes culture as “a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal.”

Coyle discovered that one of the skills that successful groups possess is making members feel safe. Coyle describes safety as “the foundation on which a strong culture is built.”  Also, when you ask people inside highly successful groups to describe their relationship with one another, they use the word family.

Successful groups also displayed behaviors that create safe connections in groups. These behaviors, called belonging clues, include proximity, eye contact, touch, lots of questions, active listening, laughter, and small courtesies (thank-yous, open doors, etc.)

Coyle says that the function of the belonging clues is to answer the ancient, ever-present questions glowing in our brains: Are we safe here? What’s our future with these people? Are there dangers lurking?

Your Lodge’s engagement is dependent upon a brother feeling like he belongs. He participates because he is comfortable being with his lodge brothers, and when at the lodge, he feels safe -the safety felt around a family.

Maybe we all have overthought about what it takes to improve our lodges.

It could be we spend so much time on other things we fail to concentrate on each other by caring, listening, enjoying, rejoicing, and practicing our most significant tenet – Brotherly Love.

Have A Great Masonic Day!