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Employee Engagement

The Chartered Institute for Personnel & Development found, in 2006, that around 35% of UK employees are actively engaged with their work/company.

However, by definition, this means that 65% are either not engaged or actively disengaged and it is these two categories that should worry employers and managers.

Staff who are not engaged simply do the bare minimum of work for their employer. They are not likely to be loyal or disloyal, working purely because they need the money.

Employees who are actively disengaged will actually try to do harm to the business, its reputation and its clients.

It’s not difficult to see why many organisations are looking for ways to ensure the highest level of engagement. It’s no longer enough for a CEO, when asked how many people work in his company to respond ‘About half of them.’

What is employee engagement?

Employers want employees who will do their best work, or ‘go the extra mile’. Employees want good jobs: jobs that are worthwhile and turn them on. More and more organisations are looking for a win-win solution that meets their needs and those of their employees.

So what is employee engagement? It can be seen as a combination of commitment to the organisation and its values plus a willingness to help colleagues. It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation. Engagement is something the employee has to offer: it cannot be ‘required’ as part of the employment contract.

Why are organisations interested in employee engagement?

Employers want engaged employees because they deliver improved business performance.

Engaged employees:

  • Work more effectively
  • Stay longer with their employer
  • Take less sick leave
  • Are far less likely to damage their employer’s brand or reputation
  • Actively recommend the organisation to potential employees and customers

How do employers build an engaged workforce?

There is no definitive list of engagement ‘drivers’. However, some of the main drivers of employee engagement , discovered by CIPD in the UK, were:

  • having opportunities to feed your views upwards
  • feeling well-informed about what is happening in the organisation
  • believing that your manager is committed to your organisation.

Engagement levels are also influenced by employees’ personal characteristics and employees are influenced by the jobs they do and the experiences they have at work.

How can Profiles help?

Companies are usually well able to define who their most engaged employees are. The correlation between engagement and performance means that standard business measurements will go a long way towards telling them that.

Using Profiles assessments to establish a benchmark from the current top performers allows an organisation to do two things:

  1. Ensure that all future employees match the characteristrics of the current ’engaged’ workforce.
  2. Establish the gaps between the less engaged employees and their higher performing peers and help them to bridge the gap.

So, are your workers engaged? Here’s a broad set of criteria for making that initial judgement.

Your workers may not be engaged if ...

  1. They miss important deadlines, not once, but chronically.
  2. They frequently report that they are too ill to come to work, and usually on Fridays or Mondays.
  3. Key managers expect staff high turnover and accept it as par for the course.
  4. The same errors appear in the business month after month.
  5. No one accepts responsibility for common mistakes.
  6. Team members are not communicating about basic job duties.
  7. No one can find Jennifer or Jonathan Employee after 3 pm.
  8. Unfounded rumors about the organization frequently float throughout the office.
  9. Important equipment needs repair or replacement, and no one reports it, fixes it or replaces it.

Profiles International can help you to develop a high performance, engaged workforce. Contact us to find out more.