What is Employee Engagement?
To start off, employee engagement does not mean employee happiness, nor does it mean employee satisfaction. Instead, employee engagement is the emotional commitment that an employee has to an organization and its goals. In essence, emotional commitment refers to engaged employees who actually care about their work and the company they work for.
When an employee cares, they are engaged and therefore, use discretionary effort. For example:
- — An engaged retail sales associate picks up trash on the shop floor even when the manager isn’t looking
- — An engaged user experience designer works additional hours when needed, without being asked
- — An engaged customer service chat agent goes ahead with the next customer in line, even if it’s the last customer on their shift
Companies with high levels of employee engagement experience better customer service, product quality, and productivity levels. As a result, this leads to higher customer satisfaction, increased sales, and higher levels of profit.
6 Drivers of Employee Engagement
1. Recognition
Employee recognition is the number driver of employee engagement. In fact, companies with high levels of employee recognition are 2.5 times more likely to see an increase in employee engagement. To make your workforce feel appreciated and valued, provide consistent and specific recognition. This helps motivate employees to do their work by emphasizing the positive qualities they bring to the table. Furthermore, because employees know that they’ll be recognized for the hard work that they do, they’ll continue to push themselves to perform even better.
2. Feedback
Employee feedback includes direct communication between employees and managers. However, giving employees the opportunity to provide feedback anonymously may be more beneficial and impactful. When employees provide anonymous feedback, they are likely to be more honest. Because of that, you’ll have a better idea of what your company’s employee engagement is like and what you can do to improve it. Additionally, once you receive feedback, it is important that you act on it to show your employees that you value what they have to say.
3. Culture
Employees who resonate with your organizational culture are more likely to stay loyal to your company. On top of that, when employees feel like they belong. In essence, they are more comfortable with their colleagues and can collaboratively work with them towards common goals. Whether or not your employees align with your organizational culture can affect productivity, retention, and engagement.
4. Team
Who your colleagues are can have a huge impact on your attitude towards your job. Having colleagues you can cooperate and collaborate successfully with is important for fostering a sense of belonging among employees in the workplace.
5. Empowerment
It is important that employees have the necessary tools and resources they need to succeed. If not, employees will feel unsupported and eventually, will lose trust in your organization. Moreover, when employees experience unfavourable situations, unsupported employees are more likely to give up rather than push through. In sum, empowered employees who have everything they need to do their work will perform better and know that their organization values them.
6. Development
Employees want to work at companies and complete tasks that will expand their knowledge and skills. Therefore, companies that provide employees with the opportunities for growth, both professionally and personally, have higher employee engagement. By providing opportunities for growth, this shows employees that they are appreciated and that the organization they work for cares about their success.
Start Boosting Engagement With TheLeanSuite
Having engaged employees is beneficial for any organization. However, engagement is a constant changing metric that requires constant monitoring. To ensure you maintain high levels of employee engagement, you need a solution that can help you continuously solicit feedback and act on it. In essence, employers need an employee engagement platform that has an intuitive interface and is exciting for their employees to use.
TheLeanSuite is a lean manufacturing software that features the Suggestion Platform. The Suggestion Platform is an employee suggestion system that makes it easy for managers to collect suggestions, provide feedback, and take action all in real-time. In addition, it has a built-in recognition and reward system so you can recognize and reward top employees who are making the most contributions to the organization’s success.
