As the workforce demographics of the United States continue to change, so too will the dynamic and culture of the American workplace. A new generation of workers carrying different values from their progenitors finds themselves at odds with the modus operandi of workplaces past. As this disparity between values and reality increases, the new workforce will find themselves increasingly disengaged at their jobs, eventually progressing into what we know as “quiet quitting”. If we are to prevent this wave of mass burnout, we must find a new way to ensure employee engagement. The Engagement Machine is the proposed solution to this ever-worsening phenomenon: a feedback loop scaffolded by several top-of-the-line empirical and theoretical insights, primarily studying John Gastil’s Democracy Machine and principles of democratic deliberation, Craig Pearce and Jay Conger’s theory of shared leadership, Men, Vercic, and Ruck’s principles of employee listening and dialogue, and Andrea Felicetti’s work on democratization within firms. All of these insights serve to maximize the chance for employees to feel engaged, respected, and involved in their workplace. Through a careful study of the epistemic theory of deliberation, as well as analysis of the most recent scholarship in the fields of business ethics, the Engagement Machine also carries with it air-tight empirical evidence that attests to its validity as a solution.
