A successful and healthy workplace depends on employee engagement, and it goes without saying that motivated, productive, and invested people are better for business. Have you ever wondered what are the drivers of employee engagement that lead to such successful outcomes?
LEARN ABOUT: Workplace Employee Experience Examples
Understanding these factors can help businesses create a culture of engagement that pushes workers to attain their most significant potential.
Most organizations now realize that employees are their greatest assets. If your employees are happy, your organization’s performance is better, yet most organizations still declare human capital a challenge. Let’s talk about the drivers of employee engagement.
What is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is the enthusiasm, commitment, and emotional investment employees have in their work and their organization. It includes a sense of purpose and belonging, in which employees are motivated to do their best, contribute to the success of their organization, and feel valued for their efforts.
Engaged employee is enthusiastic about their work, dedicated to the company’s mission, and willing to go above and beyond to meet their objectives. In a nutshell, employee engagement measures how invested and satisfied employees are with their jobs and organizations.
Benefits of Employee Engagement
Employee engagement can benefit the company’s culture, positively impact individual employees, and increase revenue. When employees are engaged and motivated, they are happier with their jobs.
In today’s fast-paced work environment, the focus is on employee engagement because companies are finally starting to understand that “happy employees make happy customers.” Forbes magazine elaborates on how motivated and consistent employees who are engaged improve the operations of a business, leading to revenue increases.
The benefits of employee engagement can be summed up as follows:
Higher levels of Employee Satisfaction
Employee satisfaction is the key to a happy workforce, and this is true for any organization. If employees aren’t satisfied, they won’t be excited about or take ownership of the work they’re given to do. This looks bad on them and hurts the company’s growth.
Not to mention that disengaged or unhappy employees cost the company a lot of money. On the other hand, happy employees are more likely to do good work that will benefit the organization.
Lower levels of employee attrition
High rates of employee attrition hurt the organization’s reputation. Employees who are not engaged enough in their work tend to quit their current jobs and move to an organization where they think they will be able to perform better.
Hiring and onboarding new employees can be very expensive and take a lot of time. A higher level of engagement will help you retain your best performers.
Better productivity
An engaged workforce works faster and more accurately than their counterparts. Employees perform better when they are motivated and engaged in their work.
According to surveys, engaged employees are 17% more productive at work. Furthermore, these employees set a good example for their peers by putting forth their best efforts.
Increase in company revenue
Employees who are more interested in their jobs work harder than others to make sure they perform better work. This makes customers and clients happy, and it’s clear that satisfied customers will come back.
Customers who keep coming back eventually become loyal customers, which is good for a business’s bottom line. It’s an easy way to make your business more money-making and profitable.
Less number of absent days
Employees who are engaged take fewer sick days, with 41% taking fewer leaves. The problem with disengaged employees is that they lack a sense of responsibility for the organization in which they work, as opposed to engaged employees, who have no problem showing up for work because they believe they are an integral part of the organization.
What are the employee engagement drivers?
The drivers of employee engagement are resources, processes, or conditions that allow individuals to connect on a more personal level to the organization they work for. These processes determine how employees perceive themselves in terms of importance and value.
Some might say finding the right talent that fits into company culture is challenging. Quality candidates are rare to find, and companies have to go out of their way to hire top performers. But in reality, organizations know there is more to this game than playing offense.
Maintaining a workforce that is going to be actively engaged requires some levels of skills on the management’s side as well. They need first to retain their top stars, and they can do this by helping improve the strategies of employee engagement levels of the employees.
Learn more: employee engagement survey examples
But anyone wanting to improve employee engagement first must understand the drivers. Imagine this, you want to lose weight, but you don’t know how or what things you can do to achieve your target successfully.
Workplace research has alarming data when it comes to employee engagement. Organizations can lose up to $ 2.246 per year for every disengaged employee.
Image your organization has 1000 employees, and according to Gallup’s study, 51% of employees are disengaged; you will have 510 disengaged employees. If you add up the numbers, you lose $1,145,560 per year, which is a whopping number.
Top 8 Drivers of Employee Engagement
A solid employee engagement strategy could make all the difference if you want to keep your team motivated and pleased with their job. Focusing on employee engagement factors helps create a company culture that motivates, engages, and commits to employees, increasing productivity, retention, and success.
LEARN ABOUT: Work culture
Employee wellness
Employee wellness is one of the essential drivers; employees with high welfare focus better, perform better, and achieve their professional and personal goals.
These are the employees that don’t get distracted at work. Workplace culture plays a vital role in improving employee well-being. It is up to an organization to provide a conducive environment for its employees.
Empower your employees
How well do you think you will perform in an organization where you are constantly told what needs to be done? Not too well, yes, I felt as much! Learn to empower your employees instead of constantly nagging them.
You might think micromanagement will help. However, it is the worst thing you can do to your employees. Employee empowerment drives better levels of engagement and gives your employees a chance to make their own decisions. This increases ownership, accountability, and confidence in senior leadership among the employees.
Workplace or company culture
Workplace culture plays an important role in facilitating employee engagement at work, and this is proven. An average American spends up to sixty hours at work, and somehow your work culture starts defining who you are. Leadership and management techniques influence culture, which in turn affects employee engagement drivers.
This engagement driver defines the tone of the organization. If you have a sorted organizational culture, you feel at peace showing up to work. Imagine a chaotic organization with no proper regulations or policies, and now imagine yourself working there. I bet most people will stop me right here!
Career growth
Organizations need to understand employees have personal and professional goals, and both are in tandem with each other. If your employees don’t see clear career growth in your organization, they will likely not stick around.
A higher attrition rate means losing valuable resources and money! And when employees see others quitting, their morale automatically goes down. Hence to retain employees make sure their engagement levels are high.
Brand alignment
When employees are in tandem with the organization’s vision and goals, they feel in sync with their roles. Employees don’t mind putting in a few extra hours to keep the ball rolling when engaged. They feel they are an integral part of the organization and take ownership of the tasks assigned.
Rewards
Humans are wired to get excited when there is a reward offered. This is the essence of human behavior, but it can be used to your advantage at the workplace and is simply thanking your employees for the fantastic work they have been doing for you for the longest possible time.
This concept is known as gamification at work. It motivates the employees to stick around and even work hard.
LEARN ABOUT: Employee Rewards Ideas for Employee Engagement
Social relationships at work
Learn to cultivate social relationships at work. This engagement driver examines respect, feedback, fairness, development, and advocacy in the employee-manager interaction. Your workplace need not be high school, where you need someone to constantly monitor you or punish you if things are not done in a particular manner.
Cultivate positive relationships at work, where people meet and greet their co-workers as they would in the world outside the organization’s four walls. You don’t want people ganging up and others feeling left out.
Data and more data
As with any business, data is essential; you will need a way to take the pulse of your organization and know at what level your employees are engaged or otherwise. One of the best ways is to collect employee feedback and deploy the employee Net Promoter Score survey. Typically the scores are ranked as follows:- People who rate you between 9-10 are your Promoters. They are highly engaged and are willing to promote your organization.
- People who rate you between 7-8 are your Passives. They aren’t at maximum engagement but are most likely productive.
- People who rate you between 1-6 are your Detractors. They are highly disengaged and are likely to complain about the company.
LEARN ABOUT: Employee Experience Strategy
How to execute Drivers of Employee Engagement?
Pay close attention to how to drive employee engagement in our increasingly remote and hybrid workplaces. Organizations should concentrate on the following actions to effectively execute the drivers of employee engagement:
Measure employee engagement
Organizations need to conduct regular surveys to collect employee feedback, interviews, and focus groups to measure employee engagement levels, identify areas for improvement, and understand the drivers that are most important to their employees.
Develop a compelling employee value proposition
Organizations should explain clearly the value proposition they provide to their employees, including opportunities for growth and development, a positive work environment, meaningful work, and fair compensation and benefits.
Foster a culture of trust and transparency
Leaders should foster a culture of trust and transparency in their organizations, where employees feel safe sharing their thoughts, concerns, and ideas without fear of retaliation. Trusted managers can help drive employee engagement by being reliable, fair, honest, and kind.
LEARN ABOUT: Employee Trust
Encourage development to drive employee engagement
Organizations should provide opportunities for professional growth and development, such as training programs, mentoring, and coaching, to help employees learn new skills and advance in their careers.
If you don’t have growth pathways in place, examine how such gaps affect employee retention, then act. Encourage employees to explore and pursue passion projects to help them become more self-directed and engaged.
Acknowledge and reward employees for their efforts
Employers should acknowledge and reward employees for their contributions and efforts, both individually and as a team. This can take the shape of rewards like bonuses, promotions, and public recognition
Improve work-life balance
Even the most motivated workers run the risk of becoming burned out if the work-life balance is not maintained. Having a work-life balance that is durable and supported by a company culture that values both personal and professional lives drives employee engagement for the long term.
Workplaces should try to give employees flexible work schedules, time off, and other advantages that foster well-being to help them maintain a healthy work-life balance.
LEARN ABOUT: Employee Wellness
Conclusion
It is vital to growing your business in the right direction, for which you must develop your human resources. The reason is crystal clear: an organization cannot achieve its goals without a dedicated workforce. The best organizations know the importance of an engaged workforce and vouch for it. Empowering your workforce with the right tools and technology will pave the road to success.
Many companies widely use QuestionPro Workforce to see the performance of their employee experience (EX) processes. Book a demo to measure workforce engagement, employee productivity, staff experience, etc.
