Are you keeping your employees engaged? Team engagement is a challenge for businesses, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. If you make it a priority to engage your employees, your efforts will go a long way. Employee engagement has been proven to; reduce staff turnover, improve productivity, work quality, efficiency, as well as deliver higher profits.
Having an engaged team makes a business easier to run and enables us to focus on activities that deliver higher value, such as innovation, process improvement, and development. These factors are critical to business outcomes and success. Here are five areas that engagement can contribute to organizational success.
1. Retention
Engaged employees are both involved and invested in their roles and are less likely to leave their jobs. Why? Engagement is an emotional process and when we feel passionate about the work we do, or we consider what we are doing is meaningful work, that is transformational, we show up differently as we want to be there, and we want to contribute. These employees are both committed and energized by the work they do. This mindset will significantly impact an organization in both productivity and results. These organizations with high engagement will have reduced turnover and hiring costs.
It may be surprising to realize that sometimes your best employees aren’t engaged – they may be contributing, yet just not feeling connected to their work due to environment, leadership or many other contributing factors. We can easily overlook these employees as they are typically consistent contributors, however, they are also at risk to leave their job.
2. Productivity
It is not unusual to expect that employee engagement increases productivity in the workplace as engaged employees produce better business outcomes than their peers, and on a consistent basis. This naturally leads to increased company revenue. According to a Gallup poll, companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable.
3. Enhance Company Culture
When a person is engaged in the workplace, everything they do is infused with purpose, energy, and enthusiasm. This is demonstrated by the commitment that a person feels to their employer and the company’s goals. Being engaged at work is about developing a team-oriented mindset about your work and organization- it means gaining an understanding of the bigger picture, and then increasing your knowledge and awareness about what’s happening to make your organization’s shared goals a reality. These employees are living your company’s values every day at work, and likely being noticed across the organization for it.
4. Innovation and Creativity
There’s no lack of articles, books, and podcasts on the subject of innovation. However, many overlook a crucial component of employee engagement.
As described earlier, engaged employees have purpose, energy, enthusiasm, as well as feel committed to the company, and care about its goals. With that type of mindset, a benefit that businesses gain is a boost in creativity. To keep up with the demands of growing customer needs, it is critical to tap into new strategies to delight your target audience, handle unexpected problems and focus on new ways to improve growth. This inspires the need for creativity and thinking outside the box. Creative thinkers in your team help take your business to greater heights.
5. Reduced Absenteeism
Employee engagement reduces absenteeism. Employees that feel engaged will showcase more dedication towards their work, and they want to be there. Additionally, engaged employees are more motivated to ensure their team’s success. A Gallup study shows that highly engaged workplaces saw 41% lower absenteeism. These employees will firmly feel committed to the mission and goal of the organization. They will choose to show up ready to contribute to fulfill those goals.
High employee engagement leads to higher productivity, higher job satisfaction and higher revenue. When your employees are actively engaged in the workplace, they feel happier and ready to go above and beyond to achieve your company’s goals.
