Engaging employees is vital for the success of a business but many companies focus their attentions elsewhere and neglect employee engagement which then often leads to issues of poor retention, poor behaviours and poor performance.
What is employee engagement?
In research published in 2004 Frank, Finnegan and Taylor described employee engagement as being, “the amount of discretionary effort exhibited by employees in their job”. Furthermore, in the CIPD’s 2006 report entitled, Working life: employee attitudes and engagement, a simpler definition is offered which summaries engagement as an employee’s, “passion for work”.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement is crucial as it has a number of powerful benefits that impact positively on your business, its bottom line, its success and the behaviours and performance of its employees. When employees are engaged numerous studies, surveys and research papers show compelling evidence that those employees are more efficient, more productive and produce work that is of a consistently high quality. That is because those employees are invested in their work and demonstrate the positive characteristics established in the two definitions we looked at earlier. Ultimately, they have genuine job satisfaction. When individual engagement is high, team engagement and performance also improve as colleagues see their peers become more driven and engaged and they follow suit. When staff are engaged, they enjoy coming to work and so their wellbeing improves and there are lower levels of absenteeism. NHS England recently carried out a study which looked at levels of engagement in staff and the impact on absence. The study concluded that when staff were engaged, absence was lower. In real terms for them that meant that an average sized NHS trust would save around 2000 sick days per year which would amount to savings on average of £365,000 in salary costs lost to staff sickness absence. A further benefit of employee engagement is that when staff are happy and engaged at work then they don’t want to leave and therefore your employee retention will improve and your staff turnover rates and associated costs will reduce. Taking on new staff is a drain on time, energy and money and therefore if your staff aren’t leaving you don’t have to worry about that or about losing vital expertise, experience, skills and knowledge.
How To Engage Employees
There’s an abundance of methods and ideas that employers can use to create effective employee engagement. A key underlying principle of strong engagement is effective communication and ensuring that as an employer you talk to staff, get to know them, gather regular feedback and where possible act on it. When employees feel heard and that their opinions matter, they then feel valued, involved and invested in their work and their company. Gathering feedback can be done informally with individuals and teams or by using employee surveys. Surveys are a great, simple way to quickly collect a range of qualitative and quantitative data and can also be used to show progress if carried out at regular intervals. Employees also become more engaged when they can see a clear link between what they do on a daily basis and the success of the business. By establishing a clear link that demonstrates an employee’s value; motivation, satisfaction and engagement are created. This is often done through setting objectives and goals. If individual employee objectives are intrinsically and unmistakeably linked to business objectives, then employees can see the connection between the two. Rewarding and recognising the efforts of employees is also a simple, quick win for employers in terms of engagement. More often than not a simple thank you and a genuine expression of gratitude from their manager, a colleague or a client is enough for an employee to feel a sense of satisfaction and recognition. Naturally they then want to recreate that feeling again and again and so keep doing positive things and engagement then snowballs. Some employers will also reward staff to help with engagement. That could be individual or team bonuses, small gifts, extra time off or an event outside of work to celebrate success, all of which work towards creating and maintaining engagement. When staff have a positive work-life balance engagement is generally strong as there is an appreciation from the employer that work isn’t the be all and end all and when staff are engaged and highly productive they are often doing more than is expected anyway and so flogging them with overtime or undue pressure would be counterproductive. This recognition of the importance and value of employee wellbeing also underpins a positive culture within a company and by having a strong, upbeat culture that permeates throughout a business, employees feel that they matter and they aren’t just a number.
A powerful case therefore exists for businesses to devote time and effort to understanding employee engagement and what it looks like in their own context. Those that don’t are likely to face difficulties with disgruntled and disengaged staff who are going through the motions and are probably thinking about leaving, or have already decided to leave. A more positive, proactive approach to employee engagement is far better for a business and in the long run companies who take such an approach will thrive.
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Why not also check out our blog on a similar topic What Is Employee Engagement?
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