Employee engagement is the overall commitment of an organization’s employees to its mission, goals, and value. It is viewed as the emotional and mental connection with an employee and his/her employer, work, and workplace activities.
Employee engagement at its highest level is a driver of employee participation, employee commitment, and employee motivation. This helps push the organization further towards its business goals as employees give their greatest efforts each and every day.
What are the Main Components of Employee Engagement?
Employee Engagement encompasses several different aspects of what makes an organization successful. Some of the main components of employee engagement include:
Leadership/ Working relationships with Peers, Managers, and Subordinates
The relationship between employees, their peers, their subordinates, and leadership should be meaningful and encouraging. Giving employees praise and feedback on their work has been shown to increase their efficiency and engagement in the workplace.
Internal Employee Communications
Employees must be able to communicate, interact, and express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas freely with coworkers and leaders. An open-door policy should be established and communicated to the employee early in the hiring process where they will be made aware they can voice their concerns or opinions at any time they feel it necessary.
Creating a communicative environment builds trust, straightforwardness, and ultimately encourages employees to be more participative.
Company Mission and Core Values
Employees must have a clear company mission and core values to model their behaviors after. Instilling in employees the importance of your organization’s mission and core values are a key aspect in encouraging engagement.
Culture
One of the most important components of employee engagement. Strive to create a fun, friendly workplace culture that encourages employees to engage and be at their best at all times.
Rewards and Recognition
Employee appreciation is a huge factor in employee engagement.
Over 75% of employees have noted that with more recognition and appreciation for their good work, they would work harder. Creating a rewards program and including formal recognition for a job well done in the form of gift cards, company acknowledgments, and awards will influence the behaviors of every employee in the workplace.
Personal and Professional Development/Career Advancement
Creating opportunity and space for your employees to grow in a personal and professional manner will encourage hard work and engagement. In addition to this, employees develop knew skillsets that can be beneficial to business growth.
Corporate Social Responsibility
67% of employees regard business social and environmental responsibility as essential when choosing the right employer. Corporate social responsibility should be at the forefront of employee initiatives as engagement levels are reportedly twice as high when employees be a part of an organization making positive changes in the community.
Impact of Attrition on Employee Engagement
Attrition is the reduction of the workforce due to resignation or retirement without plans to replace the vacant positions. Attrition has a direct effect on the engagement of employees in the workplace.
An Organization’s Attrition Rate = Number of Attritions/Average Number of Employees x 100
If the attrition rate is higher than 10%, your organization would need to figure out the kind of employees the organization is losing and to check to see if there are an solutions in order to decrease the rate. Attrition has a direct effect on the engagement of employees in the workplace as it can also lead to more well performing and engages employees leaving your organization. Investing in employee engagement helps you decrease attrition rates.
How Important is Employee Engagement to the Organization?
Employee engagement reduces employee turnover, increase employee productivity, increase organizational success, increase efficiency, and creates a positive workplace attitude. These should all influence and reinforce one another, creating a heightened sense of loyalty and pride in working for your organization.
The Importance of Employee Feedback
In the organizational scheme of things, employee feedback can potentially have a positive impact on your organization’s business. SHRM researched that 70% of employees are empowered to take action at work when a problem or an opportunity comes about as having a big impact on their engagement as employees. Employee feedback can lead to important changes in management style and workplace practices that can ultimately benefit your company and create an environment where more growth of the employees can be fostered.
Measuring Employee Engagement
In order to make a concentrated effort in refining employee engagement in the workplace, you must identify areas in which your organization can improve through accurate measurements of engagement. The trick in identifying employee engagement measurements is that it’s not seen on paper. Taking the time in creating a measurement strategy for employee engagement at the workplace is key in promoting the growth of your business.
Employee Engagement Measurement Strategy
Surveys are one of the best strategies in measuring employee engagement. Some examples of the most common questions that are seen in employee engagement surveys are:
My manager provide me with the tools I need to succeed.
I would recommend my company as a great place to work.
I rarely think about looking at employment at another company.
I receive recognition for my efforts at work.
I am happy working here.
Providing employees with the opportunity to anonymously voice their opinion once or twice a year allows organizations to pinpoint problem areas and workplace issues that get in the way of a healthy, motivating work environment and immediately correct them.
Tips in Having Healthy, Engaging Employees
There are stats that show the benefits of creating an engaging work environment for your employees to engage, commit and grow. Here are some tips and benefits. Provide better perks to your employees, as 37% of employees say that better perks will help them stay more engaged at the office.
Take the time and effort to invest in your employer brand as companies who have great employer brands are 130% more likely to see an increase in overall employee engagement. Create a culture that supports your mission, which leads to a 40% higher rate of employee engagement.