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According to Temkin Group (2016), around 80% of 300 HR professionals view employee engagement as one of their top challenges.
While employee engagement can be achieved with certain rewards & benefits, coaching and motivation strategies – knowing why they need to be engaged in the first place is vital.
By knowing the why, you can begin to implement strategies aimed towards these goals. We take a look at the benefits of having highly engaged employees in your organisation. From an increased level of productivity, to the positive impact on talent retention – highly engaged employees can truly push your business performance.
A highly engaged employee means a happy employee, which means a happy customer
Employee engagement and its correlation with customer satisfaction stems from the idea that when an employee is happy and engaged, a positive environment is created. In turn, this will have a positive impact on its customers – creating a great sense of customer satisfaction.
Harvard Business Review reported that companies like Zappos, an online retailer are excelling in this area – with their ethos based on the premise that in order to have happy customers, they need happy employees.
Forbes also reported on employee engagement as “the wonder drug for customer satisfaction” where the CEO of a leadership advice and training company, Kevin Kruse tracked over 30 studies to conclude that engagement correlates to an increase in customer service and sales. He stated that “The suggested causality is that engagement—the emotional commitment one has to their organization and its goals—drives higher levels of discretionary effort.”
Read more about employee engagement
Highly engaged employees are more likely to show up to work
The link between health and wellbeing and employee engagement is prevalent, when an employee in highly engaged within their organisation they remain motivated to go to work.
BMG Research (2017) highlighted that “levels of employee engagement increase by 31% points amongst employees who believe their employer cares about their wellbeing.”
It also provided evidence from the CIPD showing that only two in five employees are working at peak performance.
A CIPD report on Absence Management (2016) also highlighted the importance of understanding the causes of absence: “Not only to improve productivity through reducing absence, but also through creating a healthy place to work that […] fosters engagement.” According to Gallup (2016), statistics also show that companies with higher workplace engagement, there was a 37% drop in absenteeism. In fact, the Business Case Literature Review shows studies indicate that “Manager support, bullying, and high work demands coupled with low job autonomy are all factors that impact absenteeism: Low levels of support from managers in the workplace were associated with increased sickness absence rates in various occupational groups.”
Therefore, manager support and job autonomy are factors which can lead to higher engagement levels which are vital to the work ethos for an employee to come into work.
Engagement means productivity, productivity means engagement
Levels of productivity rely on a number of factors, from rewards and benefits to health and wellbeing. However, the correlation between employee engagement and productivity suggest that they go hand in hand.
The two are interdependent – research from Gallup (2015) showed that if an employee is productive, they are six times more likely to be engaged, if they are engaged they are more likely to be productive! The study also shows that: “Teams with high employee engagement rates are 21% more productive.”
Maximise your talent retention through highly engaged employees
Losing employees is less likely if you have a highly engaged workforce. Engagement encourages loyalty.
According to Gallup (2016), 54% of actively disengaged employees said they would leave their job for another one if they received just 20% more.
Yet for engaged employees, only 37% would act on this opportunity, suggesting the engaged employee’s loyalty and likelihood to stay on.
Alberto Platz, VP Global Talent Acquisition at Swarovski talks about the importance of engagement with enablement. Regarding retention, he stated that the two words together show a clearer aim for the business, as one without the other effects performance. By applying this methodology, retention can be maximised if an employee feels engaged and enabled, and in turn shows attachment to the job.
Recoup the results with business performance
Knowing that employee engagement increases productivity, customer satisfaction, retention and performance can only mean growth for the business. In the cycle examples shown by Forbes, there is a clear link between engagement and business growth.
Figure 1: Engagement-profit chain, Forbes.com (Kevin Kruse 2014)
In this diagram, you can visualise how engagement leads to profit – this is because all of the above become interlinked to increase productivity, and in turn customer satisfaction.
The importance of having highly engaged employees cannot be overlooked, not just for business growth, but for your employee to flourish within the company.