Employee Engagement is the highly desirable state where employees are fully engaged with the purpose, vision, goals and leadership of the organisation.
Employee Engagement comes from empowering and resourcing your people to be the best they can be, leading to more positive outcomes in terms of all you are trying to achieve. Engagement of the members of an organisations results from giving meaning, authority and capability to people to allow them to to make decisions and apply those decisions within the framework of the organisations context.
Engaged workers are the lifeblood of their organizations. Work units in the top 25% have significantly higher productivity, profitability and customer ratings, less turnover and absenteeism and fewer safety incidents than those in the bottom 25%. (Gallup 2013)
The Adeo Consulting Ltd approach to employee engagement is to work with Leadership at all levels and with the culture, the context, individuals, teams and groups to enable empowerment throughout the organisation.
The Emotional Intelligence term Resonance is often used to describe the undefined characteristic present in Organisations that are positive, enabling and empowering. One could define resonance as the ability to enhance and magnify performance through harmonious interaction. It is the condition that emerges as a result of leadership but also through the interactions of individuals within the organisations members.
Employee engagement usually leads to to improvements in a number of factors:
Reduced Employee Turnover
Employee turnover is often due to a lack of value, opportunity and growth within a company. Employees feel that their only option is to look for a better job. Without job satisfaction, they appraise their work only in terms of what they are being paid. Since empowerment taps the individual resources each employee can provide and focuses the combined efforts of all employees toward a common goal, job satisfaction increases. As a result, for the first time many employees feel that they are valued, and they come to understand their role in the company’s success. They are invited to grow with the company and expand their personal capabilities. They are rewarded and recognized for their personal contributions, which motivates them to do more and continue to grow and to become fully engaged. The combined result is that it reduces their desire to leave the company, and, in many instances, it increases their motivation to do a good job and remain with the company.
More Innovation
Empowerment sparks new ideas and concepts throughout the organization, including ways to reduce waste and increase productivity and efficiency. While these may be small improvements, in the empowered environment they add up to additional profits over time. Additionally, empowerment improves the relationships among managers, leaders and employees, which correspondingly reduces complaints and grievances through increased employee engagement. While these elements are difficult to quantify, the productivity increase attributable to the resolution of these problems positively impacts the performance of the organization.
Improved Reputation
There is a demonstrable relationship between an enlightened workplace and overall performance. Companies who have empowered their employees are more productive, retain more customers and are more profitable. They are able to withstand economic pressures and competitive demands because of overall employee engagement.
Improved Safety
When employees are involved with the personal management of their tasks and assignments, they are empowered to work within the boundaries that enable them to make their jobs safer and more efficient. Most companies report a reduction in workers’ compensation claims and, as a result, see lower insurance premiums. This can provide significant savings, especially in the manufacturing environment where frequent accidents occur. When employees understand the financial impact of these claims, they are motivated and empowered to make the necessary changes to increase safety.
Reduced Absenteeism
Absenteeism often results from employee boredom with their jobs and a feeling that what they do is not valued and does not contribute to the success of the company. In other words, there is no personal connection between the company and the individual employee. As employee involvement increases and becomes employee engagement, most companies experience a noticeable decrease in absenteeism because the individual contribution to the organization is sought, valued and recognized. Empowered individuals and engaged employees are challenged to their maximum capacity and abilities, resulting in an increase in overall job satisfaction. Consequently, the cost of lost productivity associated with absenteeism is reduced and can be directly attributed to a benefit and positive effect of empowerment.
Adeo Consulting Ltd can develop resonance and empowerment in your organisation with our Emotional Intelligence (EI) Workshops, through Mentoring and Leadership with our LDP and LBP programs and the through teams with our Team Emotional Intelligence (TEI) Program. To start a conversation please call us on 01 2875636 or email learnmore@adeo.ie.
More on employee engagement here.