Here’s the bottom line about the best organisations; according to Gallup, those brands who deeply integrate employee engagement into their everyday business procedures, processes, strategies and activities, outperform, outshine and are generally leaps and bounds ahead of those that don’t.
Leaders incorporate employee engagement into their organisation in the following four ways without fail, and Gallup believes that it is these things that give such organisations their edge.
Strategy and Leadership Philosophy
Although more organisations worldwide are beginning to recognise the central role employee engagement plays in driving profit and growth, leaders still fail to provide a clear vision to their people of how engagement connects to the company’s mission and growth strategy.
If leaders continue portray employee engagement simply as a survey or a human resources initiative, or worse, aren’t involved at all, they will not realise the business results that are possible.
The best leaders understand that there is an emotional undercurrent to everything they do, which affects how they conduct business every day. They take a strategic, top-down approach to engaging leadership teams and then cascade engagement through the ranks of managers to their employees on the front lines.
Accountability and Performance
Highly engaged organisations hold managers accountable — not just for their team’s engagement, but also for how it relates to their team’s overall performance.
They embed engagement into managers’ balanced scorecards and use it as performance evaluation criteria, without fail. What’s more, the most engaged organisations that Gallup works with, infuse engagement into their culture through the tone their leadership sets and the way employees and managers do their work.
Engagement permeates every conversation, whether it’s a one-on-one meeting, a team huddle, or a regional assessment.
Communication and Knowledge Management
Leaders in the best organisations take a strategic approach to aligning their employee engagement communication efforts. They find ways to communicate engagement’s impact throughout the year and share engagement tools and best practices within the business.
Within such organisations, leaders use every opportunity, touchpoint, and available communication channel to reinforce and recognise their organisation’s commitment to employee engagement and it is fully integrated into the cultural lexicon.
Development and Ongoing Learning Opportunities
The world’s top-performing organisations start engaging employees from the minute they show up on the first day. These organisations have well-defined and comprehensive leader and manager development programs, but they also go one step further, they have fully integrated employee engagement into these programs.
They take leaders’ and managers’ development seriously, and focus on the development of individuals and teams. Employee engagement is a fundamental consideration in their people strategy.
Engagement is a Conscious Choice, Executed with Skill and Commitment
The most highly engaged organisations do not become like that by accident; it takes proper execution, hard work, and perseverance to master the integration of each of these four critical components.
Such top-performing organisations are outcomes-focused. They define and rigorously measure success at every level within their organisation in a way that focuses every person, team, department, and business unit on driving performance and results.
Transformation is never an easy process, it takes a lot of energy and effort to initiate change, and even more to build on that momentum, however it is possible.
Gallup’s years of meticulous research illustrates that the benefits are tremendous (and cannot be stated enough) for organisations that get it right.
Such organisations are more productive and more profitable. They are more likely to retain top talent and attract new talent because their engaged culture differentiates them from other workplaces. They get the most from their employees by tapping into their passion, potential, and discretionary efforts. And they get the most from their customers when employees become brand ambassadors for the company and learn to maximise each customer interaction to turn customers into brand ambassadors too.
These organisations consistently outperform their competitors, and they consistently grow and thrive; even in challenging economic times.
Right now, the bleak reality is that 63% of the world’s employees have essentially checked out, and an additional 24% are acting out their unhappiness and undermining the accomplishments of the 13% who are committed to innovation and organisational progress.
If you look at your organisation and assess your employees honestly, what are the figures like in your own back yard? If you would like to learn more about how Subscribe-HR's SHaRe questionnaire solution can help you increase engagement within your organisation, click on the button below.
We hope this Blog series on engagement has given you some inspiration to set some new year’s resolutions for your organisation, and that employee engagement takes a more front and centre role in the coming year.
Credit: The image used in this blog is taken from Galllup's State Of The Global Workforce Report 2013.
