When Celine Schillinger speaks of employee engagement, she does not mean temporary spurts of fun orchestrated by management.
Schillinger has spent the last several years boosting motivation and productivity at an organization that distributes more than 1 billion human vaccines annually. She says, “Many organizations keep people happy with parties and free beer while paying them minimum wage. Their business model is based on the fast rotation of young graduates who supply cheap labor.” But engagement for the sake of engagement just keeps people happy so that they don’t claim power. Instead, Schillinger aims to engage employees responsibly.