For the past few years there’s been a growing awareness around the importance of employee engagement, and the challenges surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have only heightened this awareness.
Employee engagement is more than just a high level of job satisfaction. It is generally considered an employee feeling dedication toward their employer, their coworkers and their job. Simply put, when someone is an engaged employee, they are motivated to do a good job and even exceed expectations. Engaged employees are more likely to pick up extra work and volunteer ideas. When a company has a large percentage of engaged employees, it leads to higher levels of teamwork and productivity.
While it’s difficult to define if an employee is engaged or not, many research studies have made connections between employees who report feeling engaged and a number of benefits, including higher performance, better customer service and lower turnover. Research has also shown an association between engagement and less tangible benefits, like greater innovation.
Higher Employee Performance
To feel engaged, an employee must first have a good understanding of their responsibilities and what is expected of them. Employees also need to feel supported with the proper tools and resources. Additionally, engaged employees must feel like their contributions are appreciated.
When these conditions are met, it sets the stage for an employee to be productive. Maintaining a good level of productivity then leads to an employee feeling inspired and motivated. This can create a positive feedback loop where employees gain experience and knowledge that both increase their engagement level and their ability to perform.
Simply put, employee engagement and performance feed into one another and data reflects this relationship. According to a 2017 report from Gallup, teams of engaged employees show a 21 percent greater profitability than non-engaged teams.
Better Customer Service
Employees who are not engaged are not interested in doing more than the bare minimum necessary to keep their job. In customer-facing roles, this results in employees focusing purely on the transactional nature of their job and less on delivering a positive customer experience.
This connection between engagement and customer service can be seen in a recent study using data from Glassdoor, the employer review website. Study researchers found a one-point increase in a rating on Glassdoor is associated with a 1.3 increase and customer satisfaction score as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
In another study from The Temkin Group, 79 percent of companies staffed with engaged employees scored better with customers than competitors without engaged employees.
Lower Turnover
As the business world opened up towards the end of 2021, it unleashed a tidal wave of pent-up demand for new jobs. The result was more people voluntarily quitting their jobs in the fall of 2021 than at any other time on record.
For employers this means high turnover, and turnover can be expensive. According to a global industry analyst from Deloitte, losing an employee can cost tens of thousands of dollars, based on their position and the job location. Costs associated with high turnover include recruitment, onboarding, lower productivity, lower quality, lower customer satisfaction and negative impacts on company culture. Higher turnover can also unlock a negative feedback loop that decreases employee engagement.
Additionally, employees are appreciating assets. The longer someone stays with the same company, the more valuable they become as professionals and as sources of tribal knowledge for the organization.
Intangible Returns on Investment
Employees are a major investment for an organization, and the more engaged they are with their jobs, the more return they provide on that investment. For instance, the same study from The Temkin Group found that engaged employees are five times more likely to offer ideas on process improvements and other valuable suggestions.
Furthermore, when an organization has high levels of employee engagement, collaboration and communication are much easier. Cross department collaboration and communication results in fewer information silos, bottlenecks and delays associated with red tape.
For instance, if HR needs to partner with marketing as part of a recruitment campaign, the partnership will be easier if workers in each department understand the values and priorities of one another. HR personnel will be better able to give marketing employees the information they need to recruit the best candidates. Conversely, marketing will be more knowledgeable when it comes to appealing to top candidates in the job market.
How Tryane help you measure the level of engagement on your MO365 tools
At the end of the day, having high numbers of engaged employees makes it easier to do business. Leaders of engaged employees are more able to focus on high-level business functions like process improvement, as they are less bogged down by low productivity, miscommunications and conflict.
We can help you measure the level of employee engagement with your intranet using our suite of analytics solutions. Our analytics tools allow our clients to track key engagement indicators in real time on platforms like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Yammer – enabling internal communications teams in their engagement efforts.
Please contact us today to find out how we can make your employees more engaged in their work.