Improve employee engagement now and enjoy the benefits of a more productive, collaborative, and effective workforce.
You may have heard that there is an employee engagement crisis in the workforce—only 13% of employees are engaged worldwide. But what makes a lack of employee engagement a crisis? Why should you invest your limited resources to improve employee engagement? Here are five compelling reasons you need to improve employee engagement for the long-term success of your organization.
1. Improve Productivity
Engaged employees are more motivated to do their work, making them far more productive than their disengaged counterparts. They find sources of passion for their job, giving them the fire to stay focused and produce high-quality work. Engaged employees are also often the most innovative people on your team because they are motivated to continually learn new things and think of new ways to do their job better.
Organizations with a high level of employee engagement report 22% higher productivity than those that do not, proving that improving employee engagement on your team is more than simply improving employee satisfaction.
2. Improve Retention
Engaged employees are more likely to stay with your organization. Improvements in employee engagement are shown to decrease turnover by 24 to 59%.
Is your top talent starting to slip away? One Gallup workplace engagement study found that 51% of employees are either actively searching for new jobs or are watching for openings. Yet, when segmented by employee engagement, only 37% of engaged employees are looking for jobs. When you factor in the lost skills, decreased productivity, talent-search, and onboarding costs that are incurred when an employee leaves, this 14% difference is huge!
The same study found that the top reasons employees gave for leaving are growth opportunities, pay & benefits, manager/management, company culture, and job fit. All of these reasons can be tied back to your ability to improve employee engagement. If an employee does not feel as though there are opportunities for growth within your organization, they will not stay engaged and committed.
3. Improve Customer Service
Organizations with a highly engaged workforce get much higher customer satisfaction ratings and enjoy higher customer retention and referrals. Engaged employees are committed to delivering quality and excellence because they feel as though they are truly a part of the organization. They are connected to the vision and the mission and have therefore become effective brand ambassadors for the organization.
The question has often been asked if employees are engaged because the company is doing well, or if employee engagement does indeed improve company performance (like the proverbial what came first, the chicken or the egg? question). A 2012 study did publish convincing evidence that employee commitment shows a positive, causal impact on the performance of an organization.
4. Improve Attracting Talent
When you have an engaged, productive, and talented workforce, you are better able to attract more high-quality talent. Your team will be more likely to refer to contacts and help spread the word that your company is looking to fill a position.
When you have candidates in for interviews, your engaged employees help to bring the right person on board by asking engaging, thoughtful questions and providing authentic testimonials about what it is like to work with you. Top talent wants to work with other talented, passionate, and engaged talent. When they experience that energy in your organization during the interview process, they are much more likely to accept a job offer.
5. Improve Your Bottom Line
All of these reasons, brought together, contribute to the fifth, and perhaps most important, the reason to create a plan to improve employee engagement on your team now—your bottom line.
If you are the type of manager whose performance is measured by business performance and growth (is there anyone out there who isn’t?), then you have a tangible, financial reason to improve employee engagement. Would your company’s bottom line benefit from a 20% increase in productivity, a 20% decrease in turnover, a 10% increase in customer satisfaction, and improved talent acquisition?
Managers are the main drivers of employee engagement in your organization. Are your managers developing the leadership skills they need to motivate and engage their employees?