There is a saying that goes, “Choose a job you love, and u will never have to work a day in your life.” Many of us work because we have to and many of those who are working don’t really love their job but are still working because they need to.
It is reality but effective companies know that when employees love their job, they get more engaged to it. The more they love their job, the better will be their performance, and the better they can satisfy the customers. It is for this reason that these large companies measure employee engagement to get an idea of how much they need to work in order to create employees who love their job and are truly engaged in it.
Studies have shown that only employees who are satisfied and happy with their job can become effective in what they do and their performance can greatly help the company’s growth. Likewise, dissatisfied employees who are either not engaged at work or actively disengaged can never be effective in their responsibilities and also produce dissatisfied customers.
There may be many ways to measure employee engagement but this is a very complicated issue that roots from various reasons such as poor relationships with management, unpromising career paths, or maybe an unpleasant work atmosphere.
Employee engagement defined
Companies define employee engagement in various ways. One manager defines it as attracting, developing and retaining the company’s talents is a challenge and the only thing that will make them stick together is employee engagement.
Another manager defines employee engagement as the process of defining the employees' commitment, loyalty and work ethics. It may be a combination of perceptions such as their satisfaction of the job, pride to be with the company, loyalty, sense of personal responsibility --- all can have impact on behaviour.
Overall, Fortune 100 companies measure employee engagement because research indicates that there have been positive results from enhancing employee engagement in organizations.
How to measure employee engagement
Typically, companies measure their employee engagement through the yearly survey which assesses employees to rate their level of work engagement to get their own perception of their own engagement. However, it doesn’t get an objective result all the time.
Applying employee engagement to the workplace
Taking all these information, people analytics has offered its services to help gather accurate data on employee engagement . Companies start analyzing the amount of work the their companies are doing outside of the regular working schedule. This shows how much additional effort and time they devote for work.
Employees who have built wide networks beyond its core team are considered as having high engagement. Participation in meetings can be mandatory and not a sign of engagement. However, when employees participate in ad-hoc meetings and other initiatives, then it can be seen that they are enthusiastic of the company’s efforts and are truly engaged.
When employees take time to interact with customers even outside of their work scenario, it indicates their high engagement to serve them even without getting anything from it because they know that they represent the company and if they feel good of them, then they feel good of the company as well.
Managers who spend more time with their employees produce a more engaged workforce. They show their subordinates that they matter to him. This is a very good leadership trait that will spell success for the company.
Highly engaged employees have strong connections with fellow employees. The stronger their relationships with most of their colleagues, the higher is their engagement.
Tips on improving employee engagement
According to Reilly (2014), there are five ways to help improve employee engagement.
- Conduct the appropriate employee engagement survey. Employees expect their management to listen to what they want only to realize that the survey is not relevant to the company. Survey data needs to be specific, relevant and actionable to be effective.
- Managers need to set engagement example from the top to the local environment. Focus all efforts on setting a good employee engagement application for the employees to follow in the local level.
- Choosing the right managers can greatly help in improving employee engagement. Effective managers are great leaders as they care for their employees and their success. They encourage them to be empowered and support them in all ways they can.
- Teach managers to lead employee engagement and make them accountable for it. Coach them to measure employee engagement progress every now and then.
- Be realistic and explain daily engagement goals and make it short-term, like daily goals that are achievable and realistic.
Once a company has achieved high employee engagement, the company is on the way to success. As its employees become enthusiastic and satisfied with their job, customer satisfaction follows which lead to company’s competitive advantage over others. An organizational culture of engaged employees is hard to beat. It is worth giving all your efforts achieving employee engagement.
