Key concepts
Employee engagement is the key to building a successful business. But driving employee engagement doesn’t come easy: worldwide, only 15% of employees are engaged with their work. In today’s fast-changing business environment, retaining top talent is a top challenge for most businesses. Employee engagement doesn’t mean making your employees happy. Indeed, employee engagement does not mean employee happiness or employee satisfaction. All these concepts are connected. (Jouany & Mäkipää 2020)
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals. This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company. They don’t work just for a paycheck, or just for the next promotion, but work on behalf of the organization’s goals. When employees care—when they are engaged—they use discretionary effort. Engaged employees lead to better business outcomes. In fact, according to Towers Perrin research companies with engaged workers have 6% higher net profit margins, and according to Kenexa research engaged companies have five times higher shareholder returns over five years.(Kruse 2012)
‘War for talent’-concept means that because of the shortage of skills businesses are currently facing and employees’ expectations (they don’t just look at the benefits, they also take into account the company’s values and the development opportunities you offer), it’s becoming more challenging for businesses to retain their employees. (Jouany & Mäkipää 2020)
According to Mike Kappel (Kappel 2018), there are five ways to encourage employee engagement:
- Don’t skip onboarding and training
- Set company goals
- Acknowledge employees
- Focus on employee development
- Don’t micromanage
According to Haygroup’s (HayGroup 2018) Our leadership 2030 research, there are 6 global megatrends that are fundamentally changing relationships between businesses, their customers and employees:
- Globalization 2.0 – Economic power is shifting from West to East, giving rise to a new global middle class.
- Environmental crisis – The environment is becoming more and more important to people, as climate change gathers pace and natural resources grow scarce.
- Demographic change – Aging population are reshaping the global workforce and exacerbating the war for talent.
- Individualism – Growing freedom of choice is eroding loyalty and transforming workplace motivation.
- Digitization – Work and the workplace are going remote, and the boundaries between professional and personal life are blurring, as people are increasingly operating online.
- Technological convergence – Powerful shifts in technology are transforming everyday life and creating new product markets.
Articles & research
Both articles (Kruse 2012 & Kappel 2018) highlight the importance of the employees to feel appreciated at work. Kappel’s article gives accurate information how to encourage employee engagement. Development, training, clear goals and acknowledging employees play a big role in employee engagement. I agree about the micromanaging part, it’s never bringing good results if the managers are scanning everything what employees do and how they do it. It’s important to give the works space and peace to employees to be able to let their creativity flow. It has proven to have great results. HayGroup’s (HayGroup 2018) research about employee engagement megatrends is very thorough and on point. Especially demographic change will have a huge impact to business. Like mentioned in this research, HayGroup has raised the retirement age higher so that elder employees can transfer their knowledge to younger generations. Individualism is something I can see in my own work as well. Work shifts are flexible depending if employees have studies beside of the work or hobbies that require them to do specific work shifts on some days. When employees feel that their personal life is also appreciated, they will enjoy their work more and do it better. Once work site is flexible, the employees will also be. It goes both ways.
Similar cases
Full Contact – Each year, this software firm offers their employees $7,500 to take a “paid paid” vacation. They literally pay them to go on holiday anywhere they like. The only rules? You actually have to go somewhere, and can’t do any work or answer work related calls or messages. They stand by the idea that employees who actually go on vacation without dealing with anything work related return in a better state to work, fully ready and committed to push towards the company aims. Employees also return with a different, fresh outlook. (Maier 2016)
Legal Monkeys – This legal record management company established a simpler, smaller way to show employees that their hard work is valued. Their Appreciation Board is a glass picture frame where employees can write a note and present the board to someone they want to show appreciation to. Whoever receives the board is free to keep it on display on their desk until they are ready to pass it on to someone else. Each achievement also being posted on the company Facebook page to increase visibility outside of the team.
Ideas like this are great. They’re not only simple to implement, and won’t disturb daily workflow, but they build a real-time feedback, encouraging people to give positive feedback and show appreciation for their peers and coworkers.(Maier 2016)
References
HayGroup. 2018. The new rules of employee engagement. URL: http://f.datasrvr.com/fr1/414/25154/Hay_Group_New_Rules_of_Engagement_Report.pdf. Accessed: 15 March 2020
Joyany, V. and Mäkipää, M. 2020. 8 employee engagement statistics you need to know in 2020. URL: https://blog.smarp.com/employee-engagement-8-statistics-you-need-to-know. Accessed: 15 March 2020
Kappel, M. 2018. How to establish a culture of employee engagement. URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikekappel/2018/01/04/how-to-establish-a-culture-of-employee-engagement/ – 6f169cf8dc47. Accessed: 15 March 2020
Kruse, K. 2012. What is employee engagement. URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/06/22/employee-engagement-what-and-why/ – 436373037f37. Accessed: 15 March 2020
Maier, S. 2016. 5 companies getting employee engagement right. URL: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/285052. Accessed: 16 March 2020
Basics of Human Resource Management 