Employee Engagement
Organisational Change

Employee Engagement – more than a HR buzz-word?…

Employers want employees who will do their best work or ‘go the extra mile’. Employees want jobs that are worthwhile and that inspire them. More and more organisations are looking for a win-win solution that meets their needs and those of their employees. What they increasingly say they are looking for is an engaged workforce.

So what is employee engagement?

It’s the ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of your employees to instil an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence. Engaged employees want their organisation to succeed because they feel connected both emotionally and socially to its mission, vision, and purpose. It can be seen as a combination of commitment to the organisation and its values and a willingness to help out colleagues (organisational citizenship). It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation.

Definition

“Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee’s positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organisation which profoundly influences their willingness to learn & perform at work” (Schmidt et al., 1993).

Why should organisations be interested in employee engagement?

Just as engaged customers are among a company’s most profitable patrons and passionate advocates, engaged employees are a company’s most productive and efficient workers.

Employers want engaged employees because they deliver improved business performance. Research has repeatedly demonstrated the links between the way people are managed, employee attitudes and business performance (CIPD):

Organisations increasingly recognise the importance of their ‘brand’. Engaged employees will help promote the brand and protect the employer from the risks associated with poor service levels or product quality. Similarly a strong employer brand will help in attracting and retaining employees.

Whatever an employee’s initial motivation for joining the company, their local work environment either energises and nourishes them and fosters their learning and growth or starves them and frustrates their development. When this happens, they will likely leave the company – or even worse – hang around doing the minimum needed until it’s time for retirement. Engaged employees, in contrast, are involved and enthusiastic about what is happening in their local work environment.

So how can you build an engaged workforce?

The first step is to measure employee attitudes. Through Davis Associates’ Employee Engagement Survey it is possible to place a nominative representation of an organisation’s current level of Employee Engagement, comparable over time.

The results reveal exactly how employees feel about their work on a range of Organisational Drivers (those that define the current climate & culture within an organisation) and Individual Drivers (those that form an introspective of the employee’s current commitment, perceptions of trust and attachment to the business) that have been shown to contribute to an employee’s level of engagement within the business – call us to find out more about Davis Associates’ Employee Engagement Model…

Data from the survey can then be used to identify areas in need of improvement and combined with other data to support performance management. It also offers a fantastic opportunity for employees to share their own opinions and feelings (through the use of additional open-ended questions) directly with senior management.:

Indeed the research suggests that high engagement amongst employees can lead to:

Employee Performance: a 50% increase in the number of employees above performance expectation

Employee Retention: a 54% reduction in turnover rates

Customer Satisfaction: 89% of customers satisfied with service quality

Financial Success: a 4.5 x increase in revenue growth

For over 30 years, we at Davis Associates, have been emphasising the fact that people are the most important resource of any organisation. Just call or email us to discuss how we can help you assess and engage your own workforce.