Employee engagement refers to a condition where the employees are fully engrossed in their work and are emotionally attached to their organization. An “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers his/her organization's interests and productivity. There is a clear and mounting evidence that employee engagement keenly correlates to corporate performance in areas such as retention, productivity, customer service and loyalty. This timely treatment provides a comprehensive framework, language, and process that genuinely connects People Strategy with Business Strategy. Aimed at HR Professionals and People Managers, this chapter offers a complete, practical resource for understanding, measuring and building engagement with the use of data. Grounded in engagement theory and an understanding of psychology combined with practical tools, techniques and diagnostics this will help professionals make better and more informed decisions across the Engagement, Retention and People Satisfaction space.
TopDoes Employee Engagement Really Matter
You can buy a man's time, you can buy a man's physical presence at a certain place, you can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But you cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy initiative, you cannot buy loyalty; you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things. (Clarence Francis, 1950)
This famous employee engagement quote by a business executive in the early 1950s continues to resonate with HR professions even today. ‘Increase Employee Engagement’ continues to be a key agenda for CEOs, HR Leaders and People Managers year on year. Yet global employee engagement continues to remain at abysmally low levels. According to Gallup, on an average the number of employees who are ranked as ‘disengaged’ globally remains in the range of 70%. Of the total, some 15 to 17% are actively disengaged. Presumably, that means that they are so alienated that they have stopped connecting either with their employers or their work.
Disengaged employees cost organizations anything between $450 and $550 billion annually (The Engagement Institute). Therefore, it’s clear: higher the number of engaged employees, greater will be the impact on the bottom line of any business, the ultimate success metric.
So are employees to blame for low level of engagements?
Nope.
A glimpse into any workplace and you sense:
Organizations are keen to maximize the contribution of each individual toward corporate imperatives and metrics. Individual employees, meanwhile, need to find purpose and satisfaction in their work.
If employee engagement has been on the leadership radar screen for all these years and engagement levels continue to be low, what’s missing?
Most engagement strategies are slapdash efforts plagued with check in the box activities, conventional management values and lack linkages between business issues and people issues.