Employee Engagement
August 10th, 2009 | 
Author: I wonder sometimes whether Companies really understand the value of employee engagement? It seems that today so many employers see employees, associates, etc as adversaries. How does one get an employer to understand that this is so far from the truth. I believe that 90% or more of employees come to work to do a good job. They want to provide value and feel good about their day. They want to make a difference.
Why do employers make it so difficult? An employee/employer relationship should not be antagonistic.
Most employers do not have a clue about what it takes to make a happy employee. If they did, they would capitalize on the fact that a happy employee will lead to a happy Customer. I believe they would be quite amazed at how little an employee really does want. A kind word, recognition of their efforts, perhaps some flexible hours, a new kind of filing system, acknowledgement of some personal issue going on, a question about the photo on the desk. You know it may be even as simple as you knowing their name, saying hello in the morning and goodbye in the evening. Believe it or not there are actually bosses out their that don’t know all of the names of their direct reports!
Come on bosses. Employees are not all out to get you. Recognize them and they will amaze you!
For your own sake it is time to start taking care of your employees. These days when we are all so concerned about the bottomline it is absolutely critical you start taking care of your most valuable resource. So many employers say this but very few do. Which is it? Do you just provide lip service or do you actually value your employees and their contribution to your paycheck?
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I think the problem here is that employee engagement hasn’t yet become a top 5 priority of the CEOs office, or board of directors. It is sadly handed off as an HR issue, but nothing could be further from the truth. Employee engagement is the responsibility of every manager (and employee) in the company.
I fully agree, when you can create a workforce of passionate, driven and engaged employees, you’ll very quickly have happier repeat and referral customers, and see higher levels of revenue and profit growth.
In my mind, manager play a critical part in creating an engaged workforce, and manager need to become better man-managers and mentors to their staff. They therefore need better tools, strategies and training for them to become mentors. When they mentor their staff, and involve them more in the business, the net result is is higher engagement.
http://www.enterpriseleaders.com
I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.
Interesting take. We’ve done informal surveys for the last year or so. Trends show that, while managers think they are recognizing their staff, employees disagree, which makes sense as the majority report recognition in their organizations is ad-hoc and dependent on the manager. And while poll respondents overwhelmingly agree manager appreciation of efforts is the most important contributor to engagement at work, there is a nearly equal split between highly engaged, somewhat engaged and disengaged employees and the same split between how employees feel engagement has changed since the downturn.
More trends on recognition, engagement and employee attitude (before and during the recession) available here: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/07/readers-speak-trends-in-employee.html.