What is Employee Engagement?

Employee Engagement

It's been a buzz-term for a while now. Studies by organisations like Gallup have helped to put it on the radar of HR teams and managers alike but what really is employee engagement and is there anything you can do about it?

What is employee engagement?

Gallup defines engaged employees as those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace. One of the best pieces of work conducted on the topic is by Engage for success - A UK company commissioned by the UK government to undergo an exercise hoping to reveal what employee engagement is and the impact it can have on an organisation, its people and business.

Their work boiled down to the fact that it is real and if you want to improve it you can. There are four enablers that will help you improve engagement with employees:

A Strategic Narrative. This is the ability a leader has to be able to tell the story of the organisation: where we have come, where we are now and where we are going. Helping the teams understand and buy-in to the vision of the organisation creates a desire to be part of the whole. Help them understand the meaning of their role, which gives purpose to what they do. When an employee feels that what they do helps to achieve the vision, they are on board. There is a reference that when President John F. Kennedy visited NASA and saw a man with a broom in his hand, he asked him what his job was. The man replied, “My job Mr. President Sir is to help put a man on the moon.”

Engaging Managers. There are three main things that engaging managers do. Firstly, they help the employee understand the scope of their role. They help them understand what success in their role looks like. Engaging managers also treat their staff as individuals. They are not an anonymous human resource but rather a human being. When they are treated this way, the organisation gets more of them. The third thing managers do is to coach their people. Great managers are coaching on a weekly basis. Mostly it’s about reinforcing positive behaviours and addressing any dysfunctional behaviour.

Employee Voice. Good organisations that have high engagement are good listeners. They give their employees a voice, let them talk across silos and help them feel that their input is worthwhile. If something is about to go wrong in an organisation, someone somewhere always knows. If you want to be made aware of an impending issue, let your staff know that their input is welcomed and valid. If you see your people as part of the solution and not part of the problem, you will keep them informed well.

Integrity. Organisations should keep it real. What the organisations says, they do. They don’t pretend; there isn’t a gap between how you say you are and how you actually are. There needs to be a high level of trust and this is built by good communication and honest feedback.

So what are the figures?

The latest Gallup figures indicate that a staggering 87% of workplace employees are not engaged! Now there may be a different interpretation for different people but it's certain that someone who declares themselves not to be engaged at work will not be as productive as they can be and may even be looking around at another job opportunity. In the 2013 study, 16% of employees claimed to be actively disengaged which would point to potential sabotage in the workplace. 

Gallup also run a daily updated graph showing you the level of engagement in the American workplace.

So what?

For each of us in our roles, we need to determine how important it is to monitor and understand the level of engagement in our workplaces and in our teams. What difference could are higher level of engagement mean? If we take the figures by Gallup as a snapshot, what percentage of your team is engaged, disengaged or even actively disengaged? 

Even with engaged employees, there are pitfalls as explained in this article from the HBR.

And what can you do to improve employee engagement? Well, start with the four enablers above. How well are you doing in those four areas? You could start by asking your team.

About the Author:

Derek Good has been a General Manager for a number of years and since 2002 has been involved in corporate training and consulting. He has won the North Shore Business Awards for Customer Service Excellence and the TUANZ Award for innovation for general education. These days Derek's focus is on researching the changes in training trends and developing his online micro video training organisation LearningPlanet which is currently accessed by thousands of users across a number of countries.

For more information visit Amazon for books on how to improve employee engagement and lead teams