What is Employee Engagement?

The simple answer would be:

Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.

However there is so much more to employee engagement; it is employees wanting to do their best for the company every single day, it’s living and breathing the values and goals of the company, it is employees understanding their own well-being and how the company wants to aid in improving this.

Employee engagement is based on 9 factors:

1. Value and purpose
2. Communication
3. Wealth and wellness
4. Workspace/environment
5. Well-defined roles
6. Relationships
7. Recognition and incentives
8. Buy-in from managers
9. Personal growth and development

When organisations are looking to improve employee engagement among their staff, they will evaluate these 9 factors and how well they are/ are not achieving them.

To understand employee engagement, it’s important to understand what it is NOT:

Employee engagement does not mean employee happiness.

An employee can be very happy at work but that does not mean that they are working hard for the company. They can be happy and not be contributing to the company’s goals. This defeats the point of employee engagement – if you are engaged you are wanting to be productive and aid the company in reaching its aims.

Employee engagement does not mean employee satisfaction.

Satisfaction is not enough. A satisfied employee may be happy at work and turn up every day without complaint; but at the same time they may not volunteer to work extra hours, or go that one step further for the company. Satisfied employees are more likely to be enticed to a different employer for a 5% rise in pay. Engaged employees are far less likely to be tempted by raises and perks – they want to work for their company because they feel valued.

Having engaged employees has many benefits for companies. To name a few there is:

• Employee satisfaction
• Increased productivity
• Reduced HR costs through employee retention and word of mouth recruitment
• Increased innovation
• Greater profitability

As former Campbell's Soup CEO, Doug Conant, once said, "To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace." Employee engagement is the key to activating a high performing workforce.