I know I do a lot of talking about employee engagement. Many of you may ask, what actually is employee engagement and where did the term evolve?
According to Wikipedia, an “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests. I see engagement as a heightened level of ownership where each employee wants to do whatever they can for the benefit of their internal and external customers, and for the success of the organization as a whole.
I ran across this comic about employee engagement. Does your management have the same thought about employee engagement?
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-11-25/
Employee engagement is derived from studies of morale or a group’s willingness to accomplish organizational objectives which began in the 1920′s. The term “employee engagement” at work came to life in the early 1990’s as a modernized term of job satisfaction.
Research by Gallop shows that engaged employees are more productive, profitable, customer-focused, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave. Gallop’s employee engagement work and analysis is based on more than 30 years of research involving more than 17 million employees.
In the best organizations, engagement is more than a human resources initiative – it is a foundation for the way they do business. And they tie employee engagement improvements to corporate goals and strategies and that will help them win in the marketplace. Looking at the flipside, actively disengaged employees deteriorate a company’s bottom line. This cost is over $300 billion in lost productivity alone.
It takes a lot of attention to drive engagement. A step in the right direction is to implement with an enterprise-wide recognition system. This system should give everyone in the organization the ability to recognize each other.
Research findings show that formal, informal, and day-to-day recognition programs, when linked to the organization’s values and goals, can create a culture of recognition that enhances employee engagement.
What are your thoughts on employee engagement? What does your organization do to increase employee engagement?
