44 things... you might not know about employee engagement.
No: 1 - What is Employee Engagement?
When you think of the word “Engage” you will maybe picture well-oiled gears slotting into place as you drive your car.
Perhaps the word conjures up an image of a sparkling diamond ring in a glass of champagne?
Some of you may even hear the word shouted out by Captain Kirk on board the starship Enterprise.
These are all different types of engagement and in order to move forward as an organisation it is important to get all three aspects of engagement right.
- The first describes the behavioural side of engagement. Think behaviour as building an engine. This is the mechanical side of things, where you make sure everything works together perfectly and then trust it to work on its own. This is all about organising the workplace, putting correct procedures in place and making sure that training is up to date and effective.
- The second example describes the emotional or attitudinal factor to engagement. A study by Soane in 2008 discovered that emotional engagement was linked strongly with a sense of meaningfulness at work and also low levels of anxiety and depression.
- The final example describes the outcome of engagement. As every business is different, it is up to those involved to decide what the outcome of their employee engagement scheme will be.
However there is evidence to suggest that following correct and positive engagement, outcomes range from lower accident rates, higher productivity, fewer conflicts, reduced sickness and improved financial performance.
So when the next time somebody asks you “What does employee engagement really mean?” you can tell them: It’s all about attitude, behaviour and outcomes.
But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what the Government’s engagement guru, David MacLeod, has to say about it:
N0:2 Why Engage?
WORDS OF WISDOM
"In our business with almost 150,000 people, engagement is a key concern.
In businesses of our scale, you don't even get started without engagement,"
Justin King, CEO of supermarket giant Sainsbury's
STUDIES SUCH AS those undertaken by Gallup and Towers-Perrin have shown that engagement is not only related to financial performance and employee sustainability, but also to outcomes such as reductions in the average number of sick-days taken by staff, and better work0life balances.
ENGAGING FACT
* In average organisations the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is roughly 1.5:1.
* In world-class organisations the ration of engaged to actively disengaged employee is nearer 8:1.
No: 3 – Why Engage?
WORDS OF WISDOM
"Employee engagement is when the business values the employee and the employee values the business."
KHI, cited in the McLeod Report 2009
Out of the three factors to engagement, going beyond the call of duty falls under that of behaviour.
In the “Global Workforce Survey” conducted by Towers Perrin, it was discovered that only 21% of employees were engaged to a degree where they would go the extra mile.
No: 4 – Mobile engagement.
WORDS OF WISDOM
"The scalability and popularity of social media suggests that internal communications professionals must recognise its potential, particularly if they intend to be effective business communicators with the employees of the future.”
Mark K Curtis. Cited at http://www.melcrumblog.com
Sites like Twitter and Facebook are used by millions of people per day and have forged their own niches and created their own communities.
People talk about themselves and to each other in ways they wouldn’t have even a decade ago. Could it be that forms of communication such as email have been replaced as the best electronic messages?
Of course not, and it seems unlikely that email will ever be knocked down from the number one spot for sending information around the ‘net.
However, while it would be wrong to dismiss email as old and dusty, so would it be wrong to assume that these newcomers are just fads or bandwagons.
With a workforce more mobile than ever, a ‘tweet’ will be just as cut-through and just as quick to receive as an email message.
So think next time you need to inform employees of a great year for the company, or thank an employee for fifty years of service think: “Tweet, post or email?”
No: 5 – Innovation
WORDS OF WISDOM
"Employee engagement is important ot Metro as it drives challenge and innovation and keeps Metro at the forefront of best practice in transport."
Kieran Preston, director general of Metro
According to a study done by Krueger and Killham in the Gallup Management Journal, employee engagement has a dramatic effect on creativity and innovation in the workplace.
What they found was this: While only three percent of disengaged employees thought that their best ideas and best innovation was brought out in the workplace, the total percentage of positively engaged employees who thought the same was fifty-three percent.
Krueger, J. & Killham, E (2007) ‘The Innovation Equation’. Gallup Management Journal
No: 6 – Communication can be as easy as ABC.
WORDS OF WISDOM
"H = Human. Employee engagement is human, not human capital or human sigma or human resources, just human, period."
David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network
A great way of remembering key information is through mnemonics. To this end David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network, has enlisted the help of twelve authors to give their A-Z’s of employee engagement.
All of the ideas are, of course, subjective, and everybody gets a bit stuck at X, Y and Z. However it’s an interesting read and a great place to start thinking about just how many ideas come under the umbrella of “engagement.”
Try writing your own ABC of employee engagement, (and for a challenge, actually find a word that starts with X!)
You can read David’s free e-book here http://www.davidzinger.com/wp-content/uploads/abcs-employee-engagement-keys.pdf
No: 7 - Hot communication.
WORDs OF WISDOM"One cool judgement is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat."
Woodrow T. Wilson (28th President of United States of America)
There exists a legal requirement1 that all office buildings be warmer than 16 °C.
There is also a study2 that claims that the ideal temperature for productivity lies between 21°C– and 22°C– and that anything lower or higher may inhibit the perfect working conditions of you and your colleagues. This does not apply to arctic fisherman.
But what about emotional temperature? Who in your working environment commands undue attention, like a volcano, about to explode – and alternatively, who is the shy, nervous type who is frozen up and afraid to offer their ideas?
Sometimes creating the perfect office temperature means cooling down and warming up the right people.
1 Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992
2 Effect of Temperature on Task Performance In Office Environment – Helsinky University of Technology – 2006
