Employee Engagement – Why Bother?

The success of your business in the 21^st Century depends on how engaged your employees are – this is even more acute in the current pandemic. Business owners need to ensure employee engagement is cemented across all parts of the business, ensuring priorities, resources and goals are aligned.

However, we understand that getting your team all rowing in the same direction can be a challenge in itself, further compounded by customer demands, technological and operational challenges and economic uncertainty with Brexit (let alone a pandemic!).

Across the UK, research shows that one in three employees are disengaged. The 2019 Gallagher benefits strategy benchmarking survey, found that 67% of organisations face challenges in appealing to their diverse workforce. So, you are not alone when facing the challenge of employee engagement.

So with strong evidence showing how difficult it can be to improve employee engagement, why bother?

The benefits befall a business with an engaged workforce.

An engaged workforce is:

• Positive – showing energy and resilience
• Dedicated – showing up to work on time, taking pride in their work and show support to others
• Absorbed – demonstrating high levels of concentration and attention to detail
• Committed – to work, resulting in reduced sick absences, accidents and conflicts
• Loyal – feeling pride and dedication becoming advocates of the organisation

This level of engagement has repeatedly shown a correlation improved results in customer satisfaction, productivity, and efficiency. Engaged workers are also shown to be innovative.

Knowledge and empathy are key to engaging your team.

Making an effort to get to really know your staff and understanding their career goals is a great starting point for your journey into improved engagement. You might already have personal development plans policies, but do you measure staff engagement levels?

Take a step back to see the bigger picture. Create a structured procedure that identifies how engaged your staff are, and assess the impact this has on your business, especially from a financial perspective. You need to know how to respond to the findings. HR will play a major role in the effective implementation of your engagement program.

In keeping with many HR-powered business improvements, you need to establish what your goals are and how you are going to measure success.

At MAD-HR we are passionate about supporting businesses to engage with every member of their team, however diverse. If you need support building your employee engagement strategy, please get in touch or download our employee engagement guide.