Employee Engagement: A Guide to Effective Methods for Enhancing Engagement

Employee engagement is a corporate culture approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organization to give of their best each day, committed to their organization’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organizational success with an enhanced sense of their own well-being.

According to David Macleod:

“Employee Engagement is about how we create the conditions in which employees offer more of their capability and potential…   Employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two way commitment and communication between an organization and its members. It is an approach that increases the chances of business success, contributing to organizational and individual performance, productivity and well-being. It can be measured. It varies from poor to great. It can be nurtured and dramatically increased; it can be lost and/or thrown away.

Employee engagement is about having a good understanding of how an organization is fulfilling its purpose and objectives, how it is changing to fulfill those better, and being given a voice in its journey to offer ideas and express views that are taken account of as decisions are made.

The traits and characteristics of organizations committed to employee engagement include:

1. Employee Engagement is about being fully, as a member of the team, focused on clear objectives, trusted and empowered, receiving regular and constructive feedback, supported in developing new skills, thanked and recognized for achievement.

2. These organizations have strong and authentic values, with clear evidence of trust and fairness based on mutual respect, where two-way promises and commitments – between employers and employees – are understood and fulfilled.

3. Employee engagement is about positive attitudes and behaviors leading to improved business outcomes in a way that they trigger and reinforce one another.
   1. Check out: http://www.fishphilosophy.com/fish-philosophy-story/
      1. Based upon the concepts and methods outlined within the Fish Philosophy, all team members must decide what kind of day you’re going to have; will you consciously be part of the problem (and complain, gossip, disrespect others etc.,) or will you make a decision to be part of the solution and maintain a positive attitude at all times?

4. Employee engagement is NOT the same as employee satisfaction; rather, it’s about employees feeling pride and loyalty working for your organization, being a great advocate of the organization for clients, users and customers, going the extra mile to finish a piece of work.
   1. Moreover, employee engagement has two distinct components:
      1. Engagement with the organization
      2. Engagement with his/her manager

5. Employee engagement is about drawing on your employees’ knowledge and ideas to improve our products and services and be innovative about how we work.

6. Employee engagement is about drawing out a deeper commitment from your employees so fewer leave your company, sick absence reduces, accident rates decline, conflicts and grievances go down, productivity increases.

7. Employee engagement is about organization actions that are consistent with the organization’s values. It is about kept promises, or an explanation why they cannot be kept.

In simple terms, the steps to successful employee engagement includes:

1. Step 1: Clearly define your vision. …
2. Step 2: Give employees what they want and need to do their jobs…
3. Step 3: Communicate well and often. …
4. Step 4: Get everyone engaged. …
5. Step 5: Coach for success, and practice random acts of kindness. …
6. Step 6: Act fairly, respect, and create trust (don’t be a jerk).

How to improve engagement:

1. Start at the top. “Walking the walk” is the single most effective employee engagement strategy any company can deploy… therefore, when the CEO, CFO and other leaders get out of bed in the morning they too make a conscious decision to help improve morale or be disrespectful to their assistant.
   1. ) If you don’t model those behaviors that you expect from your team, than you’ve viewed as a hypocrite and lost your credibility
2. Be transparent. …
3. Offer visibility. …
4. Say “thank you.” …
5. Be authentic. …
6. Be flexible. …
7. Adhere to promises, commitments and – especially – to timeframes/deadlines that you’ve communicated to staff (again, “walk the talk”) and, if that’s not feasible, practice transparency and communicate why…
8. Hire people with the right traits, behaviors and characteristics. …
9. Engage from day one – ensure you have a comprehensive on-boarding program with clearly defined goals and objectives for the first 90 days and beyond.

 In short, employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work while employee satisfaction tends to focus solely on the job duties and tasks.  Measuring employee satisfaction and making changes to increase employee satisfaction will not necessarily lead to increased performance.

In fact, the conditions that make many employees “satisfied” with their jobs are likely to frustrate high performing employees. Top performers want to be challenged and to challenge the status quo. They embrace change, seek out ways to improve, and want all employees to be held accountable for delivering results. By contrast, low performing employees often cling to the status quo, resist change, and avoid accountability whenever possible.

How is employee engagement measured?  Engagement can be accurately measured through the post-hire activities of your on-boarding program that includes short surveys containing questions about whether their pre-hire expectations were met, as well as questions about their manager, their job, their department and the organization overall.

State-of-the-art on-boarding programs for high performance organizations would also include post-hire inquiries such as:

Strategic Alignment: Do employees have clarity of purpose and direction?  Do employees understand how the work they do contributes to the organization’s success?  Strategic Alignment ensures that employees have clarity of purpose and direction, and that their efforts are focused in the right direction. If those efforts are not focused in the right direction, they could be wasted.

Managing Execution: The most effective managers excel at the people skills, but they also provide clear expectations, hold people accountable, and stay focused on delivering results.

You are encouraged to view the model attached by Deloitte University Press that’s attached to this blog.  It provides an overview of precisely what goes into an effective employee engagement paradigm.

Let’s work together to improve your employee engagement.

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Mike Russell is a seasoned professional with three decades of experience in the fields of HR and OD. In addition to having a career trajectory of HR Generalist to a VP within ten years, Mike also has a long and successful background as a Consultant/Business Partner to CEO’s, Presidents and Executive Directors in both the private and non-profit communities across a wide spectrum of industries.

As the sole-proprietor and owner of Organizational Development Solutions (ODS), Mike partners with business leaders committed to insulating their organization(s) from potential liability, increasing organizational effectiveness and adding shareholder value.

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