What makes the Fortune 100 companies different from the other ones? It might surprise you, but the answer isn’t always the salary.
One of the reasons is the high level of employee engagement. The employees aren’t only satisfied, but they’re also motivated and involved in work.
What is employee engagement, and what does it say about your employees? Keep on reading to know more about it.
1. What Is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement refers to how involved and committed your employees are. It indicates the motivation of employees to contribute to the company’s success.
From the employee’s perspective, it’s going to work each day and giving their best. Employee engagement is having a clear understanding of one’s role and having the opportunity to shape decisions within the company.
It measures the employee’s motivation to do extra effort for the organization. At the same time, they maintain positive mental health.
As such, highly-engaged employees have greater value to the company. They’re the ones to do the extra mile, like helping a new hire without you having to ask. Of course, these actions receive appreciation, which further keeps engagement high.
More importantly, though, employee engagement is an outcome of the company’s actions. It’s not something the employees have to work for; it’s the organization’s job to improve employee engagement.
Employee Engagement vs Employee Satisfaction
However, when people ask what is employee engagement, some often mistake it engagement with employee satisfaction, but there’s a huge difference between the two. First of all, the latter is only an indication of how happy the employees are.
It doesn’t include the effects, like high motivation, involvement, and emotional commitment. They can be happy with their job or the company without being too involved with it. They may as well be happy for collecting their paycheck while putting in the bare minimum effort.
If a company only measures employee satisfaction, it will fail to deliver actions that will lead to increased performance. Too often, the “satisfied” employees are the low-performing ones. As such, keeping them happy means you sacrifice performance.
Most of the time, the environment to keep such employees happy isn’t where the top performers thrive. You then risk losing high-performing employees by measuring only employee satisfaction.
2. Measuring Employee Engagement
The best way to measure employee engagement is through a survey. This can show you what drives engagement and what actions are working.
Note, however, that it isn’t as simple as asking, “on a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you at work?”
You can get a better understanding of the level of engagement in the workplace by asking a series of questions. Ask them how they feel about statements like:
- I will recommend the company as a great place to work.
- I see myself working at the company for years to come.
- I am proud to work for the company.
Not only these, but questions about leadership should be a part of the survey, as well. Something like how the manager or leaders are good at communicating and motivating are good indications of employee engagement.
How so? Because good leadership equates to good employee engagement.
You should also include questions about their development and the ability to do their jobs. If they, for example, have access to the things they need to do the job well, that’s an indicator of high employee engagement.
Also, what do they think about their future in the company? Do they think they have great career opportunities? Do they feel like they’re making great contributions?
These are examples of good questions to ask to gauge employee engagement. In the end, you could also ask for open-ended feedback about what you’re doing and what you’re not doing yet.
3. Why Is Employee Engagement Important?
Employee engagement isn’t only about how excited they are about your next team building session. It’s a huge driver of performance.
Highly-engaged employees look at the whole organization and see where they fit in. They have a clear understanding of their purpose. This all leads to better decision-making, better results, and more.
4. How to Improve Employee Engagement
Remember that you don’t demand employee engagement – you work for it. If your employees aren’t that engaged, it’s up to you to change that. Here are a few tips you can do to get better results.
Assign the Right Roles to the Right People
Employees have to feel they’re doing the right things to shine in their roles. Some might be more suited to client relations, while others might be better at analyzing data.
Review the skills of each one and assign meaningful work. If you’re not making good use of their talents, they’ll feel underappreciated and won’t hesitate to walk out the door.
Supply the Right Tools for Development
They must also feel enabled and supported in their work and their development. Make sure to provide them the right tools they might need so they can do their jobs without a hitch.
Training and seminars are also a good idea. This allows them to develop their skills further and push their careers forward.
Foster Good Working Relationships
Socialization is a huge factor in driving employee engagement, too. They must have healthy working relationships with their colleagues and managers. You can hold regular social gatherings to encourage socialization.
Improve the Leadership
People don’t leave the right jobs – they leave poor management. Sometimes, everything is right for them except for the leaders of their team. This will drive down employee engagement, so make sure your leadership is in line, as well.
As such, you should provide training to managers and leaders, too.
Look Closer Into the Employee Engagement
Knowing what is employee engagement is one thing; taking steps to improve it is another. Remember that feeling appreciated and having a clear outlook of their future is what drives up their level of engagement. If you want to learn more, feel free to check out our other business guides available today.
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