Employee Engagement and Commercial Success

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionately about their jobs, are committed to the company, and put discretionary effort into their work.

It drives performance and businesses with engaged employees have higher productivity and profits and ultimately greater commercial success.  Engaged employees understand their purpose, where and how they fit in.  It can be helpful to have company goals, mission and values so that your employees know where you are heading and how they fit into that journey, as ideally you want them to share your goals and values.  If you don’t have goals or values communicate and discuss this with your team to involve them in what they might be.  This isn’t only about company goals and values as a whole but also an individual’s goals as well.

Disengagement is a big threat to a company; this is not just having a few unhappy employees.  Disengaged employees can lower production and company performance – they can cause problems both at work and with clients.  They are also more likely to leave, which is then costly for you to recruit and replace.

A few questions to ask yourself:

• Does your company have a culture that motivates, empowers, challenges and respects employees?
• Do your employees have clarity of purpose and direction?
• Do your employees know how they contribute to the success of the company?
• Are your managers motivating their employees to do their best? Are they building strong relationships?
• Are your managers clear on their role? Do they provide clear expectations, hold people accountable and stay focused on delivering results?

Communication is key – it can increase employee engagement, boost workplace productivity and drive business growth.  Some top tips:

• Have a communication plan, including a establishing a two-way flow of information from top to bottom and back up.
• Make sure communications are relevant and targeted.
• Use engaging messages – be consistent.
• Eliminate fear of repercussion – be open to feedback without fear of how honesty will affect their position.
• Measure success – through tools such employee surveys. Ask them if they think they receive communications enough? Do they understand the company goal, values? Do they know the part they play in the success of the company? Do they feel their opinion is valued?
• Make sure employees feel you are doing something with the feedback you receive.