Strategies for Enhancing Employee Engagement

Behaviors of engaged and disengaged employees:

The terms engagement and job satisfaction are often used interchangeably. However, research has revealed that although there is some overlap in the drivers of engagement and satisfaction, there are also key differences in the components that determine each.

Some experts define engagement in terms of employees’ feelings and behavior. Engaged employees might report feeling focused and intensely involved in the work they do. They are enthusiastic and have a sense of urgency. Engaged behavior is persistent, proactive and adaptive in ways that expand the job roles as necessary. Engaged employees go beyond job descriptions in, for example, service delivery or innovation. Whereas engaged employees feel focused with a sense of urgency and concentrate on how they approach what they do, satisfied employees, in contrast, feel pleasant, content and gratified. The level of employee job satisfaction in an organization often relates to factors over which the organization has control (such as pay, benefits and job security), whereas engagement levels are largely in direct control or significantly influenced by the employee’s manager (through job assignments, trust, recognition, day-to-day communications, etc.).

Organizational drivers

Some of the research identifies organization wide drivers of employee engagement.

Quantum Workplace (the research firm behind the “Best Places to Work” programs in more than 47 metro areas) has identified six drivers of employee engagement that have the greatest impact:

• The leaders of their organization are committed to making it a great place to work.
• Trust in the leaders of the organization to set the right course.
• Belief that the organization will be successful in the future.
• Understanding of how I fit into the organization’s future plans.
• The leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource.
• The organization makes investments to make employees more successful.

Management drivers

Employee engagement increases dramatically when the daily experiences of employees include positive relationships with their direct supervisors or managers. Behaviors of an employee’s direct supervisors that have been correlated with employee engagement include:

The Gallup “Q12,” which are 12 core elements that link strongly to key business outcomes. These elements relate to what the employee gets (e.g., clear expectations, resources), what the employee gives (e.g., the employee’s individual contributions), whether the individual fits in the organization (e.g., based on the company mission and co-workers) and whether the employee has the opportunity to grow (e.g., by getting feedback about work and opportunities to learn).

• Employees enjoy a good relationship with their supervisor.
• Employees have the necessary equipment to do the job well.
• Employees have authority necessary to accomplish their job well.
• Employees have freedom to make work decisions.

The Roles of HR and Management

Employee engagement is influenced by many factors from workplace culture, organizational communication and managerial styles to trust and respect, leadership, and company reputation. In combination and individually, HR professionals and managers play important roles in ensuring the success of the organization’s employee engagement initiatives.

The role of HR

To foster a culture of engagement, HR should lead the way in the design, measurement and evaluation of proactive workplace policies and practices that help attract and retain talent with skills and competencies necessary for growth and sustainability.  

The role of managers

Middle managers play a key role in employee engagement, creating a respectful and trusting relationship with their direct reports, communicating company values and setting expectations for the day-to-day business of any organization.

To increase employee engagement levels, employers should give careful thought to the design of engagement initiatives.

General guidelines

As HR professionals consider adopting or modifying practices or initiatives to increase employee engagement, they should:

• Make sound investments. The organization should consider the strategic implications of various HR practices and determine which are more important and merit greater investment to enhance engagement levels.
• Develop a compelling business case. HR professionals should be able to demonstrate how these investments have led to positive, measurable business outcomes for the organization or other businesses.
• Consider unintended consequences. When evaluating alternatives for redesigning HR practices to foster employee engagement, think about the likely impact of the revised policies. Are there potentially unintended, unfavorable consequences that may occur based on the impact of that change on employees in different circumstances and life situations?
• Base investment decisions on sound data. Employee engagement should be measured annually. Survey items should be linked to the organization’s key performance measures, such as profitability, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Outcomes of employee engagement research should include the identification of the highest-impact engagement levers and survey items that differentiate top-performing business units from less successful units.
• Create an “engagement culture.” This can be done by communicating the value of engagement in the mission statement and executive communications, ensuring that business units implement their engagement action plans, monitoring progress, adjusting strategies and plans as needed, and recognizing and celebrating progress and results.

HR practices

HR practices have a significant impact on employee engagement. The following practices can increase employee engagement:

• Job enrichment. Incorporate meaning, variety, autonomy and co-worker respect into jobs and tasks so that employees view their role more broadly and become more willing to take on duties beyond their job description.
• Recruiting. Target applicants who are likely to view their work as interesting and challenging. Encourage those who are not suited for particular work to opt out of the process.
• Selection. Choose candidates who are most likely to perform job duties well, make voluntary contributions and avoid improper conduct.
• Training and development. Provide orientation to create understanding about how the job contributes to the organization. Offer skill development training to increase job performance, satisfaction and self-efficacy.
• Strategic compensation. Use pay-for-performance programs to focus employees’ attention on incentivized behaviors. Adopt competency-based pay to encourage acquisition of knowledge and skills and enhance employee performance.
• Performance management. Set challenging goals that align with the organization’s strategic objectives, provide feedback, and recognize accomplishments and extra voluntary contributions.

Creating engagement surveys

When developing employee engagement surveys, organizations should consider the following guidelines:

• Include questions that could be asked every year or more frequently. This will provide a base line for management of employee engagement.
• Keep language neutral or positive. For example, ask, “Is our line-to-staff ratio correct for a company our size?” instead of “Are there too many staff for a company our size?” Avoid negatively worded items.
• Focus on behaviors. Good questions probe supervisors’ and employees’ everyday behaviors and relate those behaviors to customer service whenever possible.
• Beware of loaded and uninformative questions. For example, questions such as “Do you look forward to going to work on Mondays?” elicit a “no” response easily, even from engaged workers.
• Keep the survey length reasonable. Overly long surveys reduce participation rates and may result in skewed responses because participants check answers just to finish the survey as quickly as possible.
• If you work with a vendor that comes to you with a “standard” list of questions, consider tailoring questions to reflect your organizational needs.
• Consider what you’re saying about the organization’s values in issuing the questionnaire. Question selection is critical because it tells employees what the organization cares enough to ask about.
• Ask for a few written comments. Some organizations include open-ended questions, where employees can write comments at the end of surveys, to identify themes they might not have covered in the survey and might want to address in the future.
• Consider doing more than one type of survey, each with different questions, frequencies and audiences. For example, “pulse” surveys are brief, more frequent surveys that address specific issues or are given to specific segments of the workforce, and they can take place between annual surveys. Or conduct different surveys for company leaders and employees, or in different business units or specific countries.

Communication opportunities

Employers have numerous opportunities for “engageable moments,” when they can motivate and provide direction for employees. The following formal and informal “engageable moment” opportunities:

Formal opportunities include:

• Recruitment; onboarding.
• Performance reviews.
• Goal setting.
• Communications by senior leaders.
• Employee surveys.

Informal opportunities include:

• Career development discussions.
• Ongoing performance feedback.
• Recognition programs.
• Company social events.
• Personal crises.