How working on employee engagement can help you to weather the economic downturn

During this time of economic uncertainty, leaders at all levels are faced with the challenge of getting greater productivity out of their employees in order to survive.

Employee engagement is not just about levels of satisfaction; rather it is a dynamic and complex relationship where employees decide upon the amount of discretionary effort they are willing to give to their employer.

There are many definitions and the Institute of Employment Studies describes engagement as:

"A positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values.  An engaged employee is aware of the business context and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefits of the organisation."

Employees who are fully engaged find purpose and satisfaction in their work and their efforts are aligned to your organisational goals and targets.  Engaged employees tend to outperform others as they are willing to go that 'extra mile' to ensure success.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in their report 'Employee engagement in context' found the following helped to improve engagement levels:

• Senior managers who are willing to listen directly to employees views
• Opportunities for promotion based on merit
• An entrepreneurial culture based on dynamic employee contributions and performance improvement initiatives
• Fair and consistent HR practices
• A focus on traditional management practices such as setting objectives/targets and good performance measures
• Showing employees they are valued by the organisation
• High levels of employee satisfaction
• Giving employees a choice about their own work patterns
• A friendly and supportive working environment

In contrast, barriers to engagement included:

• Reactive decision making
• Inconsistent and unfair management styles
• Rigid or incoherent communication channels
• Poor work-life balance culture
• Low perceptions of senior management visibility and communication
• Poor leadership in times of organisational change
• Lack of encouragement or opportunities to get involved

Now is the time to work on improving levels of engagement across the organisation and you can take action by:

• Ensuring individual and team activities are aligned to strategic goals so employee talents are focussed in the right place
• Empowering employees by giving them important and fulfilling work
• Ensuring your line managers are providing quality and timely feedback
• Listening more and asking employees what they want
• Asking employees what they like about their jobs and providing them with more opportunities to do it
• Recognising and rewarding discretionary effort by using your fully engaged people as role models
• Continually communicating the final destination so they all know where you are headed