Benefits and Challenges of Employee Engagement

A lot of people believe that to be engaged as an employee it to be satisfied and committed. I believe that engagement does include these things but also involves a sense of pride and a willingness to be an advocate on behalf of your employer. It involves speak highly of your organisation, saying what a good place it is to work and how good the services and products are.

Since improving employee engagement can prove to be such a challenge, the first step to improving engagement is to identify what drives engagement in the first place. Employees need to:

• Feel committed to the organisations values
• Know that customers think highly of their products
• Know that their opinions count
• Know what is expected of them
• Be fairly rewarded
• Feel valued by leaders
• Be part of a respectful work culture
• Have their personal objectives linked to the business plan.

Benefits:

Better workplace culture and improved employee wellbeing

Engaged employees are happy employees. Companies that understand the drivers of employee engagement heavily invest in employee recognition, career development, valuable and frequent feedback, diversity and inclusion, employee wellbeing, and other initiatives that people care about. Consequently, these companies tend to have employees who naturally shape positive workplace culture and a healthy work atmosphere.

Higher employee productivity and company profitability

The ultimate goal of every organization is to improve its profitability and efficiency. While technology and other resources may help you improve organizational productivity, people are the most important asset to focus on.

Employers that manage to keep their people motivated and engaged are, in general, more successful. Research shows that engaged employees are 17% more productive than their peers, and this engagement also leads to higher organizational profitability.

Lower employee turnover and absenteeism

If you are an HR professional, you know very well that 2020 and 2021 were the years of great resignation. People leave their jobs more than ever before. They are looking for something more meaningful and aligned with their personal values.

Organizations that align their core company values with employees’ beliefs witness one of the biggest benefits of high employee engagement high employee retention.

Better sales and customer service

Besides acquiring new customers, we know how important it is to retain the existing ones. This can be done only by providing a memorable and positive customer experience. Plenty of research shows the correlation between positive employee experience and positive customer experience.

Meaning, the better impression your customer service teams have of your company, the better experience they will provide to the customers.

Improved employee safety

Due to COVID-19, employee safety has become one of the biggest priorities for many organizations across the world. Construction, healthcare, retail, and similar industries spend enormous amounts of money every year to protect their workforce.

The best and most natural way to ensure higher employee safety is to increase employee engagement.

Challanges:

Lack of insight or commitment from the top management

There goes a lot in keeping a business afloat, and it might become difficult to prioritize concepts like employee engagement over other more tangible issues. It requires a lot of groundwork to keep the communication reliant and constant between different hierarchical levels, and the infrastructure required might not be in place.

Align the leadership around a unified business strategy keeping in mind employee engagement and the importance of positive workplace culture.

Lack of clarity

The first barrier that presents itself is the lack of clarity amongst the staff and the management. People associate engagement with all sorts of concepts like job satisfaction, happiness, high employee morale, etc. but it is all this and much more. An engaged workforce is satisfied with their jobs with high productivity and loyalty to the organization. They are attached to their place of work and their job recommending other people as well.

Educate the management and workforce about the concept of employee engagement and what it constitutes through measures like training sessions, seminars, group discussions, etc.

Generalization

More often than not, employers try a one-size-fits-all approach for their employees, which might not work for everyone on a similar level. Different things engage different people, for example, it could be anything from autonomy or variation in their scope of work to flexibility in their work schedule.

Decipher the strengths and requirements of your employees based on their preferences and work accordingly.

Growth and recognition

Lack of appreciation is one of the principal reasons for employees quitting from their jobs. A culture that doesn’t promote recognition and rewards alienates the workforce disregarding one of the most fundamental needs of social recognition. Employees also tend to leave the workplace that stifles their growth, with the same monotonous line of work. A work culture promoting recognition and rewards with a continual learning phase appeals well to everyone, consequently leading to an engaged workforce.

Lack of work-life balance

A lot of organizations do not pay heed to the concept of work-life balance, expecting employees to place their work first, in most cases. A healthy work-life balance is imperative to let employees work with their utmost productivity. Perks like on-site gyms, flexible work hours, offsite work, etc., work tremendously in making employees feel that they are cared for by the management, and as we all know, a content workforce and a satisfying work culture make for a prospering business.