How to Engage Employees

--> One of today's hot topics is employee engagement.  Here are some excellent business reasons to get everyone working to their full potential: 

An employee's motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.Bob Nelson 

We were asked in Jan.2012 by one of our client to take in-depth look at employee engagement and to report on its potential benefits for both company and individual employees. The client encouraged us to examine in particular whether a wider take up of engagement approaches could impact positively.

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In the course of last 24 months, we have seen where performances and profitability of the company have been transformed by the employee engagement program. We have witnessed in our studies which show a clear correlation between engagement and performance – and most importantly between improving engagement and improving performance. Today we are putting this practice in more than a dozen clients.

Engagement, going to the heart of the workplace relationship between employee and employer, can be a key to unlocking productivity and to transforming the working lives of many people for whom Monday morning is an especially low point of the week. 
Employee Engagement – What, why and how

How employees behave at work can make the crucial difference between business and operational success or failure along with enough cash, clear strategy is vital.

Engaged organisations have strong and authentic values, with clear evidence of trust and fairness based on mutual respect, where two way promises and commitments – between employers and staff – are understood, and are fulfilled.

What we thought simple at first turned out be tough task. There is not a single  agreed definition of employee engagement – during the course of this review we have come across more than many definitions; many of them rejected and some of them agreed. What we have learned there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach and no master model for successful.

These four enablers of engagement have proved to be useful lenses which can help organisations assess the effectiveness of their approaches.

Despite there being some debate about the precise meaning of employee engagement there are three things we know about it: it is measurable; it can be correlated with performance; and it varies from poor to great. Most importantly employers can do a great deal to impact on people’s level of engagement. That is what makes it so important, as a tool for business success. 

·     There is employee voice throughout the organisations, for reinforcing and challenging views, between functions and externally, employees are seen as central to the solution.

·     A positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of the business context and works with colleagues to improve performance.

·     There is organisational integrity – the values on the wall are reflected in a day  behaviors. There is no ‘say-do’ gap.

·     In particular, engagement is two way; organisations must work to engage the employee who in turn has a choice about the level of engagement to offer the employer. Each reinforces the other.