Hi, I’m Neelie and welcome to this learning bite on employee engagement.
In this video, you will learn what employee engagement is, what the benefits of employee
engagement are, and you’ll learn eight ways to increase employee engagement at your organization.
But before we get started, don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to our channel,
and hit the notification button.
Let’s talk about employee engagement!
What is employee engagement?
Employee engagement is “the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work
and workplace”.
This means that engaged employees thrive at their organization and are committed to improving
their work and impact.
Employees who are highly engaged are enthusiastic about their day-to-day job.
They care about the work they do, promote the values of the organization, and contribute
more to the company culture.
Also, if their role is customer-facing, engaged employees will take better care of customers.
Typically, employee engagement is measured through an annual survey but increasingly
we see companies measuring engagement through more continuous pulse surveys.
We’ll discuss eight ways to increase engagement later in this video, so stay tuned if you
want to know how!
But first, let’s talk about why employee engagement is important.
Are there any benefits to it?
Benefits The short answer is yes.
The long answer is also yes!
Employee engagement has many benefits, both for the employee and for the organization.
Let’s start with the employee.
Employees who are engaged are more satisfied with their work and more committed to their
organization.
They also report higher levels health and wellbeing, show more personal initiative,
are more likely to actively learn new skills, and are much less likely to burnout.
In addition, the top 25% of engaged employees are 41% less likely to be absent, at least
24% less likely to quit, and are involved in (!) 70% fewer safety incidents compared
to the lowest scoring engagement quartiles.
This means that engaged employees are more involved in their work, feel more energetic,
and when they work, they are also more likely to experience flow, which is a mental state
in which they are fully involved in their work and time seems to pass quickly.
In other words: their workday is over before they know it!
Organizations also benefit from engagement.
For instance, organizations that invest in an engaged workforce are more profitable.
Organizations that invest in their employee engagement, see an increase in profitability
of up to 23%!
BestBuy, a large electronics retailer, is a great example.
They found that when employee engagement went up by 0.1 percentage point in a store, the
store’s annual operating income went up by one hundred thousand dollars!
In other words, if engagement in a store went up from 60 to 65, revenue would increase by
5 million Dollar!
higher customer loyalty, higher productivity, and lower employee turnover.
Engagement in the organization The Employee Engagement Model is an easy way
to visualize the concept.
Think about it like this: every person has needs and wants in their personal life.
We all need to sleep, eat, and feel safe.
We also want to have a sense of belonging, want to be respected by the people we love,
and have a purpose in our lifes.
The same goes for our work life.
Here, an employee’s needs can be classified into four categories: Basic needs, individual
needs, teamwork needs, and a need for growth.
Let’s go through each of these.
Basic needs Basic work needs is about having the tools
and knowledge necessary to perform the work.
It answers questions like: do employees know what’s expected of them at work?
And do they have access to the material, equipment, and tools to be successful?
Next in the pyramid we have individual needs.
Individual needs revolve around the environment employees need to perform at their best.
Are employees encouraged to develop their skills and knowledge?
Do they feel cared for by their manager?
Do they receive regular recognition?
And are they allowed to do what they do best every day?
In short, for employees to feel engaged, they need a supportive environment.
Next up are teamwork needs.
We all know that teamwork can make the dream work, and this is true for engagement as well.
Employees need to feel a sense of belonging at work.
Do they, for example, have a best friend at work?
Are their colleagues committed to delivering quality work?
Further, do they feel aligned with the mission of the organization, and do their opinions
matter?
And last, there is a growth need.
Does the employee have the opportunity to learn and grow on a regular basis?
Employees can grow through learning, but also through career advancements.
In this case, growth for employees means growth for the organization.
Organizations with the most engaged employees meet their employees’ basic, individual,
teamwork, and growth needs.
“But”, I hear you ask, “how will you know if these needs are met?”
The best way to find out is to ask your employees!
Before we talk about eighth ways to increase employee engagement, we should review on how
to measure employee engagement.
This is such a big topic that we made a separate video for that!
So if you want to learn more about how to measure engagement, [Neelie points to the
top left corner] check out our video in the card above.
How to increase employee engagement OK!
Now you know what employee engagement is and what its many benefits are.
Let’s now look at how organizations can make their workforce more engaged.
To explain this, we use the job demands-resources, or JDR model.
According to the JDR model, engagement is created by giving employees job resources.
The more resources they have, the more engaged they are.
Conversely, when the demands of the job are too high, they burn out.
Job resources form a buffer that helps to cope with high job demands.
Take the job of a CEO.
A CEO has a lot of mental and emotional demands placed on them to run the organization.
But CEOs usually do fine because they have access to many job resources.
They control their agenda, they have a lot of room to make decisions, have access to
advisors and coaches, have a competent leadership team, are paid very well, and so on.
All these job resources form a buffer against the demands of the job.
So to summarize, in any job there are two processes at play:
The health impairment process, where high levels of mental, physical, and emotional
job demands create strain and health issues; The motivational process, where job resources,
such as social support, autonomy, and feedback lead to engagement and high job performance.
So to improve engagement, a job needs to be challenging while the employer gives appropriate
support.
If we plot this on a two-by-two, we see that employee engagement can te improved by working
on both axes.
If engagement is low due to high levels of stress or job demands, you can consider:
Hiring additional employees to spread the workload
Simplifying the job by removing responsibilities Removing time pressure by re-evaluating projects
or extending their timelines Ensuring the people are better qualified to
do their job, so that the job becomes less demanding to them
If, on the other hand, the motivational process is not well-developed and employees lack job
resources, consider Increasing autonomy by allowing more flexible
working hours or a hybrid workplace, Improving management practices by providing
coaching Training team managers to provide more support
to their teams And providing development opportunities, which
also are highly motivating and may, in the long run, decrease the perceived demands of
the job
And there you have it!
Eight tangible ways to improve work engagement, either by using the motivational process to
increase job resources, or reducing the health impairment process by reducing job demands.
In this video, you learned about employee engagement and its benefits.
You also learned how engagement changes through a motivational process and a health impairment
process, and you learned how to leverage these processes with eight simple employee engagement
interventions.
Now there are many other ways to improve employee engagement that we haven’t mentioned.
What are ways that you think will make employees more engaged?
Let us know in the comments below!
And before you leave, don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to our channel, and
hit the notification button.
See you next time!