Employee Engagement
Much has been written about Employee Engagement in recent times and while it is ‘en vogue’ right now due to our tough economic environment, the reality is that engaging your employees should be ‘business as usual’.
But what is employee engagement? Why should you be thinking about it? How do you implement it?
What is Employee Engagement?
The CIPD defines Employee Engagement as “a combination of commitment to the organization and its values, plus a willingness to help colleagues. It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation. Engagement is something the employee has to offer, it cannot be ‘required’ as part of the employee contract.”
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric summed it up nicely when in 1988 he commented:
“…people come into work everyday, use their brains and get paid…..but they park their hearts at the front door. We are only using a small percentage of the power and energy of the people in our organisation. That’s just plain crazy! We need to do more to engage our people so that we get their hearts as well as their minds!”
It was the precursor to one of the first ever Employee Engagement programmes undertaken globally across GE’s entire workforce in the mid 1980’s.
Further, engagement can be broken down into three dimensions.
- Emotional engagement when employees are emotionally involved with their work
- Cognitive engagement when employees focus hard on their jobs while at work
- Physical engagement when employees are willing to go the extra ‘mile’ for the organisaton.
It is only when you have all three that you can really say “our employees are engaged!”
For many companies this will mean a significant change in culture.
Why should you be thinking about it?
Benefits of having a truly engaged workforce include:
- Increased morale and job satisfaction
- Lower sickness and absenteeism
- Quicker decision making
- Empowerment and ownership
- More effective decision making
- New idea generation
- Best practice sharing
- Improved feedback
- Better communication
- Higher staff retention (and lower recruitment costs)
- Increased ability to attract new employees
- Higher performance levels
- Improved productivity
- Increased customer service
If you are trying to achieve any of the following then implementing an Employee Engagement programme will help you achieve your organisational goals and objectives and lead to long-term sustainable performance.
How do you implement it?
There are many things that you may already be doing that can support your plan to engage your employees.
The following 10-point checklist may also help.
General Training/Employee Engagement/10 Point Checklist for Employee Engagement.docx
Based on 25 years of ‘hands-on’ experience within numerous leading edge global and small businesses who have implemented a range of employee engagement initiatives, we offer advice, support, facilitation and training through our ‘Breakdown’ and ‘Break-Through’ interventions to help implement an Employee Engagement programme that best suits your organisational needs.
…..but why stop at employees?
Why not develop a Customer Engagement programme too?