Does your organisation do ‘employee engagement’? Part 1
The following article (both parts 1 & 2) gets its facts, figures and some of its quotes from the following two articles
CEO’s fail behind engagement strategies
CEO’s misunderstand employee engagement
What is ‘employee engagement’ and why is it such an issue at the moment?
In a nut shell, ‘employee engagement’ means ensuring that employees are as motivated to do their job as possible.
Why is it such an issue at the moment?
Due to the current economic circumstances it is often the case that 8 people are doing the job of 10 and there is a real danger in such cases of motivation plummeting and chronic disengagement setting in.
According to a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, more than eight out of 10 top executives in companies across Europe and the Middle East view disengagement as one of the three biggest threats to their business.
Today (Part 1), I will look at
- Arguments for ‘employee engagement actually improves the bottom line.
- Why there is so much inaction on employee engagement.
1. Do you think ‘employee engagement’ improves your bottom line or is just a pointless HR initiative?
A survey by Melcrum of 1,000 HR and corporate communications professionals found that many credited employee engagement programmes with the following benefits:
THE HARD BUSINESS BENEFITS
- More than 50% report improvements in employee retention and customer satisfaction
- 33% report higher productivity
- 28% report improvements in employee advocacy
- 27% improved status as a “great place to work”
- 27% report increased profitability
- 25% report improved absenteeism
And organisations that also advocate employee engagement include ITV, Fairplace, Sainsbury’s, Cass Business School, Yell, Engage Group, Dinamiks, Towers Watson and Caburn Hope.
2. Why is there so much inaction?
With over 47.7% of the HR community saying there is no executive sponsorship of engagement initiatives, 40% of organisations not linking engagement to business outcomes and 27% of organisations not even attempting to measure employee engagement, very few could deny that there is a certain inertia when it comes to the issue of employee engagement.
So why is this?
Of the 40% of organisations that have no strategy to increase employee engagement levels, the three biggest reasons given were
‘Cost is prohibitive’,
‘Leader does not understand the concept’
‘Leader is not aware of business benefits’
.
Typical responses (particularly from smaller organisations) were
.
Engagement is already really good here.
Employee engagement is just the flavour of the month.
There are more pressing priorities for management.
.
There is also a tendency for around three-quarters of organization management to view improving employee engagement as desirable in as far as it will improve employee satisfaction, but does not see it as having any direct effect on business performance.
In Part 2, (Will be published on Tuesday the 25th of January) I will look at
- Who should be chiefly responsible for employee engagement
- How an organisation should go about engaging its workforce.
