I talked to John Hollon today about employee engagement. John’s a VP at TLNT.com and a longtime board member at the Workforce Institute. He’s spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the importance of employee engagement, including in his chapter in Elements of Successful Organizations.
Here at Kronos, we recently received the results of our annual employee engagement survey. Our results place us in the Aon Hewitt “High Performance / Best Employers” category. As an employee here, I’m not surprised by the top drivers of engagement identified in the survey – coworkers, a culture that encourages a diversity of ideas, a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction with our management. It’s been my privilege to work with a great group of people for the six years I’ve been here, and I hope to continue that streak.
According to Gallup, in world-class organizations the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is 9.57:1. In average organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is 1.83:1. Even though there is plenty of quantitative evidence liking higher employee engagement to higher organizational performance, many organizations and managers still ignore it as an issue. And among those that do measure engagement, many struggle to implement changes that will improve it.
John’s given this topic a lot of thought and has some practical advice that managers can implement to improve employee engagement. You can listen in on our conversation here: 7.17.12 Conversation with John Hollon.
In our organization, the culture revolves around our mission, probably to a greater degree than in for-profit companies. Having worked in both and in government, I am enjoying the level of dedication and the lack of personal agendas that this creates. We also find that many of our corporate partners whohave their employees doing volunteer work and giving back are seeing this corporate philantropy paying off in employee engagement and better retention. So it is a win-win all around.
I think a sense of accomplishment is one of the key factors influencing employee engagement. I think it’s very important to show to your employees that their work is meaningful and that it actually has some tangible results. There’s nothing that puts people off more than a dull and steady job. You would be surprised but unhappiness in the workplace where progress means nothing is often connected to health problems. According to various surveys, people with low-paying jobs and with few possibilities to make progress have a higher risk of heart disease than those who feel satisfied in their careers. I just recently read that only a small number of employees are happy with their working environment which results in increasing importance being placed on different wellness programs and even a workplace exercise regimen to increase productivity and develop a more positive attitude.