The Key to Employee Engagement

In this chap­ter we explore what we mean by employ­ee engage­ment. Every orga­ni­za­tion has a dif­fer­ent approach to employ­ee engage­ment, some have it high on the agen­da, and for some it’s an after­thought. We reveal what the key research behind employ­ee engage­ment says, how engage­ment is evolv­ing in today’s orga­ni­za­tions and how engage­ment and per­for­mance are linked. 

In this chap­ter we look at how employ­ee engage­ment plays a role in high per­for­mance, and how you can mea­sure both in a more effec­tive way. 

Count­less stud­ies have shown the impor­tant role employ­ee engage­ment plays in per­for­mance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. By doing so, employ­ee engage­ment has a wider impact on oth­er areas of an orga­ni­za­tion too. By improv­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and per­for­mance, engaged employ­ees also have a pos­i­tive impact on an orga­ni­za­tion’s bot­tom line. In this chap­ter, we look at why employ­ee engage­ment is impor­tant, how it impact’s the bot­tom line, and why leg­is­la­tion is mak­ing it a board­room issue. 

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, employ­ee engage­ment has been con­sid­ered sole­ly a HR issue. How­ev­er, the more we look into it, the more we realise that employ­ee engage­ment is every­one’s respon­si­bil­i­ty in an orga­ni­za­tion. In this chap­ter we look at how lead­ers, man­agers and employ­ees play a role in improv­ing employ­ee engagement. 

What is work engagement?

There are many dif­fer­ent ways of mea­sur­ing engage­ment. Clear Review’s method­ol­o­gy of mea­sur­ing engage­ment is based on ​“work engage­ment.” Work engage­ment is a proven fac­tor in high per­for­mance. Research has revealed that work engage­ment is the biggest sin­gle fac­tor that pre­dicts work task per­for­mance (36%), com­pared to trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship which is 10%. A good envi­ron­ment for work engage­ment is one in which the employ­ee under­stands the pur­pose of the com­pa­ny and the role their jobs play in its suc­cess. An engaged work­force leads to a high per­form­ing one because employ­ees are immersed in their job, and enthu­si­as­tic and clear about their impact on an organization.

Ener­gy, pur­pose and immersion

There are three engage­ment fac­tors all relat­ed to per­for­mance and its out­comes. They are ener­gy, pur­pose and immersion. 

Ener­gy: If you have ener­gy at work, you have the met­al ener­gy and resilience to get through chal­lenges at work. You have the ener­gy to get through it because you have the peo­ple around you to sup­port and the resources or bud­get to sup­port you. This is some­thing that is enabled through the work­place environment. 

Pur­pose: Hav­ing pur­pose at work is know­ing that what you are doing is going to accom­plish some­thing and has some sort of impact and effect. If you are doing work that no one cares about, that does­n’t mat­ter, and you don’t have a pur­pose to get stuff done, it can be high­ly dis­en­gag­ing. Hav­ing a sense of pur­pose boosts engagement. 

Immer­sion: Immer­sion is all about the flow of your work. It’s all about hav­ing the right lev­el of chal­lenge and dif­fi­cul­ty. If you get caught up in it and lose track of time, in a good way, it gives you a sense of flow in your work­place because you are immersed in your work.