We’ve written before about employee engagement. Specifically, we revealed how organisations with high employee engagement outperform those with low engagement by an incredible 202%. That’d be great news if it wasn’t for that fact that 85% of employees worldwide aren’t highly engaged.
Nonetheless, we still need convincing that now is a good time to engage in engagement. Increasing employee engagement takes time, effort and resources. So why is now a good time to invest in it?
1. Remote Workers Can be Invisible
It’s hard to engage employees when they are sat across the office from you. For managers, learning what makes an employee tick isn’t easy at the best of times; you can’t easily get into their mind and walk a mile in their shoes. But it’s essential.
Yet, with remote learning, without active and conscious effort, it’s even harder for managers to ascertain what’s going on for the employee. What makes them want to give their all to their work? Are they having a bad day, and will you know if you’re separated by miles and hidden by computer screens?
How does employee engagement help? By actively working to improve the engagement of your employees, you can scale some of the barriers of remote working. You can actively know what makes your employee productive and efficient, or not. You learn what motivates them.
2. The Individual Aligns with the Organisation
The top trick of high-performing organisations is to successfully align the goals of the organisation, or team, with the goals of the individual. When an individual can clearly see that working towards their self-motivated goals and objectives directly impacts and contributes to the success of the organisation, you’ve got a potent mix. This doesn’t happen by accident.
How does employee engagement help? How can you align the goals of the individual and the organisation when you don’t know what makes that employee passionate and motivated? How can you align goals if you don’t know what skills the employee is missing in order to get from point A to point B? By increasing employee engagement, you intentionally align the individual with the objectives of the business. They feel invested, and it pays off.
3. Hold Onto Your Talent
Right now, employees are mostly sitting tight. In the uncertainty of the pandemic job market, they aren’t going anywhere fast. However, fast recovery from the pandemic is anticipated, and when it happens, you won’t have time to wonder how to hold onto your best and most valuable talent before it gets snapped up by competitors.
Improving employee retention is one of the greatest drivers of improving employee engagement.
How does employee engagement help? If you can secure high rates of engagement amongst your employees, you’ll also reduce employee turnover along with its associated costs. Retaining valuable talent is always easier and cheaper than seeking new talent from elsewhere.
4. Boost Productivity
Engaged employees are productive employees. In fact, engaged employees are 38% more productive than their less engaged counterparts. Right now, you need your whole organisation to be consistently and effectively productive. With tight margins and a difficult economic climate, there isn’t room to carry non-productive employees.
How does employee engagement help? It’s not enough to simply have an individual in a role. You need that individual to do their best. You need them to care. By increasing employee engagement, you move beyond presentee-ism to having a workforce that actually gets things done. And that means more profit.
5. Wellbeing of Your Staff
The wellbeing of your staff matters. A healthy and happy workforce is a productive and successful one. However, the pandemic has hit the wellbeing of our employees hard.
The data will be rolling in for some time yet, but already we know that the pandemic is really taking its toll on people’s mental health. The most recent Mental Health Foundation research reveals 54% of the UK adults have felt anxious or worried due to the pandemic, in a two week period alone. 22% feel hopeless, 54% feel frustrated and 50% worry that they can’t cope with the uncertainty. Really concerning, 22% of the UK population are drinking more, and 36% eating more, just to cope with the stress of the pandemic.
Mentally well staff are productive staff, but right now, more than ever, your staff may be struggling.
How does employee engagement help? Engaging employees ensures they feel part of something, connected and important as part of something bigger than themselves. Engaged employees experience enthusiasm and a boost to their energy.
Improving employee engagement won’t happen by accident. It requires intentional desire and action. Start with employee engagement surveys and then move forwards with insight and knowledge.
