Think about a time when you felt engaged at work. What did it feel like…what did you accomplish? Did you feel energized, with the ability to see through problems to develop innovative solutions? Did you feel you could accomplish miraculous results and out perform all your goals? What if all your employees were engaged…what would that do for your overall business results?
“Highly engaged employees outperform their disengaged counterparts by a whopping 20-28 percentage points.” ~ The Conference BoardEmployee Engagement, A Review of Current Research and Its Implications |
What is Employee engagement? Wikipedia defines it as “a concept that is generally viewed as managing discretionary effort, that is, when employees have choices, they will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests. An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work.”
Research confirms a link between key business outcomes such as Customer Engagement, Profitability, Efficiency/Innovation, Sales Growth and employee engagement. Doesn’t that make sense? It takes an engaged, satisfied employee to provide the type of service that result in customer satisfaction and retention. It is tough to “fake” happiness in your work.
Here are a few tips to increase Employee Engagement in your organization:
- Create Line Of Sight to Outcomes – Employees need to know not only the company vision but the importance of their contributions in clear terms related to their specific jobs.
- Get to Know Your Employees as Individuals – It is important to find out your employee’s motivations and strengths. It is equally important to also find out what is important to them off the job such as hobbies, interests and family.
- Assess Engagement – An engagement assessment helps to direct your focus towards specific areas of strengths and weaknesses in your culture. This allows teams to celebrate successes and create action plans to improve misses.