The Drivers of Employee Engagement

Engaged employees are crucial to the success of your organization. Research has found that employees who are engaged in their roles are more loyal, which leads to increased productivity and profitability and lower levels of staff turnover – which means less recruiting costs.

How do you go about ensuring that you have high levels of engagement in your company? It takes a lot of time, effort, investment and commitment to raise your engagement levels, but the payoff is well worth it if you can do it right.

You need to understand what motivates people and what drives their actions to determine how to translate it to actions you can take in your business to increase your employee engagement. In doing so you can achieve a high-performing culture and see a measurable increase in productivity, sales and profit.

Some of these ways may include:

1. Having a common goal

Employees who share the goal or ethos of the company often feel more invested in seeing it succeed. If they feel like they accept the mission, vision and values of the company they often have higher levels of engagement.

2. Being recognized

Everyone likes to feel valued, and having your efforts recognized is a good way to show this. There are a number of ways to do this, from having staff awards to ensuring that positive feedback from clients and stakeholders is passed on.

3. Management and leadership

Leaders in an organization set its culture and tone. If they aren’t committed to making it a great pace for employees to work, then the organization will fall at the first hurdle.

Research from Deloitte found that 62 per cent of employees who plan to stay with their current employers reported that they had high levels of trust in their organization’s leadership.

4. Freedom

People don’t like feeling caged. Employees who are granted higher levels of autonomy and the ability to express themselves are far more loyal and productive than those who are stifled.

5. Communication

The communication practices within an organization have a direct correlation on its levels of engagement. When there are gaps in communication or information silos, there is misinformation, miscommunication and mistrust.

6. Clarity of role

When employees understand the work they have to do and how their job fits into the “big picture” of the organization, they often feel higher levels of satisfaction than those who are uncertain.

7. Personal development

Employees like to feel they are able to grow in a job. Nobody likes to feel like they are stuck in a dead end – they want to know there are opportunities for them to grow and develop and gain valuable experience along the way.

8. Being given meaningful work

According to research from Deloitte, 42 per cent of people seeking new employment do so because they feel that their job doesn’t make good use of their abilities and skills.

9. Relationships with co-workers

You spend so much time at work, it’s horrible to be around people who make you miserable. Having good, positive relationships with colleagues is constantly reported in surveys as being an essential driver for engagement in employees