It should come as no surprise that employee engagement is woefully lacking in many organizations across the United States and around the globe. Most company leaders know this is a problem, but few have the solution. Boosting engagement has become an ad hoc smattering of surveys at best, and a subversive attempt to weed out dissenters. In the worst cases, workers who don’t give the company high enough marks on engagement surveys get labeled as cynics or malcontents and are shown the door. The problem is so bad that an estimated one-third of employees skip engagement surveys altogether, or give false answers. However, the concept of an “employee value proposition” might just save engagement. Because of the tightening of the labor market, it's getting harder to find and retain top talent. In short, it’s management’s responsibility to create an environment in which highly talented individuals want to work. “Every company has a customer value proposition; it is a clear, compelling reason why customers should do business with them,” wrote the authors of The War for Talent. “Few companies are nearly as thoughtful about why talented managers should join and stay with them. However, the new battlefield is as much for talented people as it is for key customers. Companies need to apply the same rigor to people management as they do to customer management.”