I’m as good or as bad as the next HR Director in being anxious to get our employee engagement index up.

After all, not only will we get in the Sunday Times Best Companies listings, but all that research about the link between engagement and productivity is now incontrovertible, isn't it?

Yet on occasion, I am beset by doubts that our quest for greater and greater engagement is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Perhaps it's because I spent too much time analysing our Best Companies data and noticed that all the questions seem to be about how good people feel with barely a nod to how conscientiously they apply themselves to their work. Or because not long ago I was in a room with a group of HR academics getting terribly excited about how employers can create greater 'meaning' for their employees.

Thinking about all this, my mind wandered back to the days when my father was still alive and working - 45 years boy and man, interrupted only by a stint soldiering in WW2 - as a pen-pushing clerk for the Eastern Electricity Board. He worked a lot of overtime, was out from 8.00 to 8.00 most days, seldom taking a day off. He seemed to work hard and was loyal to his company. He never spoke of meaning, but inasmuch as any could be deduced it would seem to have consisted of a belief that he should provide for his family and a sense that he shouldn't let down the firm or the colleagues he relied upon for his livelihood.

OK so times have changed, the psychological contract has changed with less job security, and now people expect a great deal more out of work. Or do they? At a recent staff focus group looking at how we could improve on our staff survey results, participants brainstormed how they and their colleagues could have more 'fun' at work. After a while of pondering this, one of the group looked at her colleagues in a quizzical fashion and said, "Hey guys, you know what, this is supposed to be work". This young colleague happens to be from Eastern Europe.

So in another time, another country, people may look at our engagement mania with open-mouthed incomprehension but how is that useful or relevant to think about in relation to the early 21st century workplace? Well, I think it is, in terms of realising that anything taken to extremes can become counter-productive. The engagement industry seems to have taken on a life of its own and I really do think at times we are in danger of breeding a workforce of high maintenance namby-pambies by bending over too far backwards to make life at work meaningful and engaging.