Are the employees in your company motivated, committed, enthusiastic and co-operative? Is their level of corporate citizenship high? Of the total company headcount, how many employees are actively and fully involved with their hearts heads and hands in activities that further the company’s goals and interests? Employee engagement is a hot topic in today’s workplace and leading organizations recognize the vested interest they have in actively measuring, monitoring and maximizing the level of engagement amongst their employees and ensuring it is not left to chance.
The Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study, the largest of its kind, conducted in May and June2007 and released in October showed that just21% of employees surveyed around the world are engaged in their work while38% are either disenchanted or disengaged and the remaining41% are only partly engaged. Clearly employees are not exerting their full discretionary effort to meet their companies’ goals and agendas and there is a significant reservoir of untapped potential, a gap which Towers Perrin has labeled the “engagement gap”.
Employee Engagement is loosely defined as the level to which employees are fully involved in their work, committed to their work, care about their organisation and colleagues and are willing to extend themselves and go the extra mile for their company to ensure its success. The Conference Board in the USA in its2006 publication "Employee Engagement, A Review of Current Research and Its Implications", describes employee engagement as “a heightened emotional connection that a employee feels for his or her organization that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort to his or her work.”
Employees can be broadly classified into three categories: -
Engaged: Engaged employees are enthusiastic about their jobs, loyal, motivated, committed and productive. They have a strong emotional allegiance to their workplace and are driven to succeed.
Not engaged: Not engaged employees are not totally psychologically connected to their company. They work hard and contribute but are less driven to succeed than their engaged counterparts and are more likely to engage in absentee behaviour and/or leave the company.
Actively disengaged: Actively disengaged employees are emotionally and cognitively divorced from their work, they have in a sense “checked out” although they are physically there. They are disgruntled, unhappy to be there and their negativity is palpable, infectious and disruptive for the organisation.
Repeated research has shown that there is a direct correlation between the level of employee engagement in a company and the company’s overall financial and operational performance. Specifically, higher levels of engagement are associated with:-
The research evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the difference between engaged and disengaged employees is not insignificant and that engagement has become the best competitive advantage companies can leverage to propel their businesses forward. This is particularly true as economies shift towards knowledge economies and the workforce increasingly simulates a knowledge workforce vis-a-vis a labour workforce, with the associated shift in the balance of power. According to the2006 Conference Board report, highly engaged employees outperform their disengaged colleagues by20-28 percentage points. The benefits of having a workforce who have a high morale, are enthusiastic and love their work and tapping into the full reservoir of employee potential creativity and innovation cannot be overstated.
Various factors influence employee engagement among them the following:-
The Institute for Employment Studies in its publication: The Drivers of Employee Engagement (Robinson D, Perryman S, Hayday S, April2004) cites that based on research it undertook “the strongest driver of all is a sense of feeling valued and involved.” The2006 Conference Board publication which summarized twelve major studies on employee engagement over the past4 years by top research firms such as Gallup, Towers Perrin, Blessing White, the Corporate Leadership Council and others and came up with26 key drivers of engagement defined the direct relationship with one’s manager as the strongest of all drivers.
There is no shortcut towards creating and maintaining employee engagement, it takes commitment and an investment of time, effort and resources on the part of a company, but the payoff in terms of enhanced productivity, profitability and elevated morale is well worth it. As indicated in a2003 Towers Perrin Talent Report: Working Today: Understanding What Drives Employee Engagement, “building engagement is a process that never ends. And it rests on the foundation of a meaningful and emotionally enriching work experience.”
The first step toward maximizing the level of engagement in a company is to set in place a mechanism to regularly measure and assess prevailing employee attitudes through comprehensive employee satisfaction surveys. Engagement levels are influenced by individual attitudes, propensities and characteristics so managers need to carefully gauge and consider what is most relevant and important for their own staff.
Management can then put in place the measures that bridge the gaps in employee engagement, in particular when it comes to:-
Clearly an environment where employees are valued, respected, involved, challenged, have opportunities to grow and are clear about their roles and their contributions to the company’s goals and performance, is much more conducive to feelings of commitment and corporate citizenship amongst the workforce.
The2007 Towers Perrin Study findings highlight three areas of focus for companies to increase engagement and tap the reservoir of employee discretionary effort.
"At the end of the day”, said Julie Gebauer, Towers Perrin Managing Director, "our study paints a picture of a workforce that is energetic, ambitious and committed to working hard and giving its best. This lays to rest several persistent stereotypes: that employees are loyal only to themselves and their careers and are looking to do the minimum to get by. But turning people's energy and ambition into engagement – and ultimately into significant performance lift – demands attention, focus and some very different behaviors from senior leaders, as well as clear follow-through on a number of organizational practices. The challenge for senior management is to recognize the value of employees' untapped potential and to channel it in ways that yield real improvements in business performance."
