Employee Engagement
As a Talent Specialist, I have been tasked to run an employee engagement survey and workshop annually and it’s been part of my scorecard for as long as I can remember. I strongly believe that engagement drives productivity and bottom line results and should be redefined beyond an HR metric to an organisational strategic metric.
The compelling commercial motive is that engaged employees who love their work and the environment, will treat customers better, consistently innovate, improve the business and increase the bottom line results.
Engaged employees are committed to achieving and exceeding the strategic goals and objectives of the organisation. They are fully connected and enthusiastic about their work and the organisation
They care about the future of the business and are willing to invest additional effort to ensure that the organisation succeeds. In my experience there are a couple of key steps that assists an organisation in enabling engagement.
- Connect and communicate the history of the company and the desired future, the mission and the values. Put the values and mission on the walls, but be sure to be living it and ensure and hold each other accountable for this and measure the success of the “living it”. Engaged organisations have authentic values, these are understood and fulfilled.
- Provide your employees with focus and autonomy, coach and stretch your employees. Provide your employees with challenging and meaningful work with opportunities for career advancement, hold them accountable. Provide employees with the tools to achieve these stretch targets and ensure that they have the confidence that the goals are achievable. Provide your employees with good procedures and processes to enable them.
- Provide employees with a feedback tool. Employees want to know that their input is valued and that they are contributing to the organisation in a meaningful way. Employees also enjoy feeling that they are part of the decision, a feeling of “being in on things,” and of being given opportunities to participate. This creates a culture of trust and respect and ultimately makes employees feel that they had input into the solution.
- Celebrate success. Employees want to be proud of their jobs, their performance, and their organization. Good leaders work daily to improve the skills of their people and create small wins that help the team, unit, or organization perform at its best.
Every organisation competes in terms of procurement of commodities, the only differentiator that gives an organisation the competitive advantage is their people. Engaged employees are more productive and will be your differentiating factor, ultimately increasing the profitability of your organisation. Can you really afford not to have engaged employees?
Written by: Heidi Stayt-Group Talent Manager at Mindcor