Employee engagement is so much more than employee happiness or job satisfaction. It refers to how committed employees are to the business and its success. It is about how motivated they are to complete work, how closely they relate to company values, and their willingness to collaborate and work as a team. As much as it seems to be under an employee’s control, there is a lot that employers and managers can do to boost employee engagement.
Significance of employee engagement
According to the Harvard Business Review, companies with high employee engagement have double the success rate than lower engaged companies. Employees who do the bare minimum to sustain a job can still feel satisfied by their work, but they aren’t engaged employees. An engaged employee puts in the extra effort for the betterment of the organization, driving key business metrics like employee retention, productivity, and revenue.
If an employee can align their purpose with the company’s vision and mission, there is a high chance that the employee will feel motivated to work. It is crucial for employers to effectively communicate the organization’s goals to the employees and provide them with their specific role in achieving them. Having a clear idea of their job responsibilities can help employees feel confident and motivated at work. This stands true across all industries of work and is something that HR professionals should keep in mind.
Businesses are constantly looking for ways to improve workforce productivity. Even with so many benefits of having an engaged workforce, there is a reason why companies still struggle to achieve it. Apart from keeping the employees accountable for their job duties, employers need to evaluate their role in assisting the workforce. Fostering an inclusive workplace environment and adapting to people-first-HR trends can be an effective step to keeping employees engaged.
Factors affecting employee engagement
A host of factors contribute to an employee’s engagement. These engagement drivers are distinct components of the workplace that power engagement. There are organization-level drivers—such as culture, interdepartmental relationships, and compensation—which are largely outside the control of individual managers. The organization-level drivers are the ones that shape the company’s overall persona and are a critical aspect that directly affects employee engagement.
There are also factors that are wholly or primarily under a manager’s control, such as empowerment and recognition. Managers can harness these factors to help employees reach their full potential while maximizing their organizational contribution. Taking essential steps to improve manager-employee relations can also be an effective way to keep employees engaged.
It is the sum of the employee engagement drivers that determines an employee’s level of engagement. Individual drivers, such as having strong social connections in the workplace, cannot drive engagement alone. It may help to think of engagement as an ecosystem of relationships, where all aspects of the environment must be tended for engagement to flourish.
Manager’s role in improving employee engagement
A 2020 Gallup survey found that there was a rise in employee engagement in Canadian businesses. However, even after this rise in engagement, only one in five Canadian employees is engaged at work. This indicates that there is still a lot of room for improvement, and businesses need to deploy tactics that help drive employee engagement.
We understand the importance of having a cohesive engagement strategy and how overwhelming it can be to develop one! That is why our team of HR experts has compiled for you a FREE Guide to Improving Employee Engagement. Download the guide to learn the best practices for your management team to help keep employees engaged.
While Citation Canada, formerly HRdownloads, uses reasonable efforts to maintain this site/blog and its Services in an up-to-date fashion, it does not warrant the completeness, timeliness or accuracy of any information contained on this site/blog or any of its Services, whether in English or French, and may make changes thereto at any time in its sole discretion without notice. All information and Services provided by Citation Canada, formerly HRdownloads, are provided to members and/or users “as is”, “with all faults,” “as available” and at the sole risk of members and/or users. Our human resources information and recommendations are based on seasoned, best practice field experience and should not be construed as legal advice.