Employee Engagement

The Issue

Many organizations face challenges in instilling in their employees a strong affiliation with the organization, its mission, its values, and its work. Without this connection, employees are often less motivated to perform with excellence and contribute discretionary effort. Since disengaged employees can be disruptive to the organization whether they stay or leave, it is important to maintain an engaged workforce.

Our Point of View

• Engagement is more important than retention.
• Leadership is critical in building or destroying engagement; trust in, and connection with, leadership are vital drivers of engagement.
• There are three distinct categories of engagement, all important for optimal employee performance:
  • Understanding by employees how their work links to organizational goals.
  • Aligning personal values and organizational values.
  • Ensuring mutually beneficial and trusting relations between employees and the organization resulting in meeting people’s value propositions.
• Engagement should not be confused with employee satisfaction.  Satisfaction surveys are not a valid measure of engagement.
• A simultaneous mix of organization-wide initiatives and one-on-one approaches is necessary.
• Training and development should provide support so that people can actively engage in ongoing skill-building and career enhancement.

Our Approach

We help organizations improve employee engagement in a number of ways.  Some approaches include:

• Clarifying strategy and objectives enabling employees to understand how they contribute to success.
• Deploying engagement surveys, and identifying gaps in employee value propositions.
• Developing managers into leaders who understand how to identify and leverage the strength of each employee.
• Redefining and expanding career development.

Typical Benefits

• Increased retention of highly engaged and desirable employees; lower undesired turnover.
• Alignment of effort, increased involvement, and subsequently higher performance.
• Improved discretionary effort, especially in outward facing roles such as sales and customer service.
• Stronger employer brand to attract top talent.

To learn more, contact us by phone at (312) 523-2123 or by email.