Employee engagement strategy
Having an employee engagement strategy will increase your profitability and help secure the long-term success of your business.
What is employee engagement?
Here is our summary:
- Employee engagement describes the two-way relationship between employer and employee.
- Engaging employers provide the conditions for employees to give their best.
- Engaged employees work with colleagues to improve performance for the benefit of their organisation and customers. We call this the psychological contract.
Engagement requires a clear alignment between personal and organisational objectives and values. This results in consistent levels of proactive and discretionary effort.
Employee engagement helps define your workplace culture. Your levels of employee engagement will determine how people feel about working for your organisation. This is really important to pay attention to. After all, it's not businesses that succeed, it's people that succeed.
How can we help increase your employee engagement?
We will help you to:
- Create a strategy that is properly balanced to motivate your team to meet your business goals and objectives.
- Improve the leadership skills within your business so your teams feel inspired and enthused.
- Increase business growth by delivering Wow! moments to your customers to your customers so they come back for more and tell others to do the same.
You are probably already familiar with the concept of the customer journey. We know that employees have a journey of experiences too. We will encourage you to consider the employee experience at each of the many touchpoints throughout the employee journey. Just as with your customers, every experience at every touchpoint on the employee journey needs to be as positive as is possible too.
Our approach is practical yet based on the latest research from trusted sources. We pride ourselves on our ability to demonstrate tangible results in everything we do.
Why is employee engagement so important?
Imagine a situation where two thirds of your production machines were not fully operational. No doubt you would want to correct this as soon as possible. The same goes for people too - statistics consistently show that levels of high employee engagement remain stubbornly low. Poor employee engagement means lower levels of productivity. Profitability suffers.
Attracting and retaining employees is an issue many companies and organisations are dealing with right now. We believe that addressing employee engagement is the answer.
We advocate treating your employees as being like customers. It's important to remember that employees can leave at any time they choose. Just as customer loyalty is essential to any business, high levels of employee engagement pays dividends too.
The world of work continues to evolve. As employee expectations increase, employee engagement takes on even greater significance. For example, hybrid working provides its own challenges of keeping employees engaged.
What does employee engagement deliver?
High employee engagement delivers greater discretionary effort where people go the extra mile. Engaged employees feel motivated, valued and show a passion for their work, their company and their customers.
Engaged employees have less absence, higher commitment and act as company ambassadors. They make fewer mistakes and are more productive.
The business case is well made. Take a look at these statistics from Engage for Success as evidence:
- Employers with engagement scores in the bottom quartile averaged 41% more employee turnover, 51% more inventory shrinkage and 62% more accidents.
- Employers with engagement scores in the top quartile averaged 12% higher customer advocacy, 18% higher productivity and 12% higher profitability.
What steps can you take to improve employee engagement?
We recognise that every business is unique. However, research from Engage for Success informs us that there are 4 common themes found in those organisations who consistently achieve high levels of employee engagement. These themes can help guide you on where and how start to increase your levels of employee engagement.
Strategic narrative
Tell the story of why and how your company has been created and how it has become what it is today. But don't just focus on ancient history. Include recent events and how your business has adapted (for example, during the pandemic). Then provide information on current status and the immediate future. However, finish with your vision of where your business is going in the longer term. People need to have their confidence inspired.
Engaging managers
Engaging leadership at all levels across your organisation is important. Managers need to be situational leaders, responding to the needs of their team members as required. A combination of giving direction and providing support is needed - not only different strokes for different folks but different strokes for the same folks as tasks change. People are unique so a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership and management does not work.
Employee voice
Employees have opinions on what works well and on what can be improved. They can be described as your best smoke alarm, spotting things going wrong way before those in charge come to know. So find ways of listening to all your employees and let them know that they have been listened to. Employee voice goes way beyond the annual employee engagement survey.
Integrity - living the values
Most companies and organisations have organisational values. However, many struggle with bringing their values to life. Your organisational values need to be inculcated throughout your company and across the employee experience. For example, recruitment and onboarding, performance review meetings and reward and recognition should each reference your company values. Most importantly, everyone at all levels should be accountable for living the values - there should be no 'say-do' gap.
How is employee engagement measured?
Having an employee engagement strategy is only one part of the equation. Just like any other business activity, an employee engagement strategy needs to be measured and adapted as things progress. We have expertise in this field too.
Using our expertise we will help you create your own measures so you can evaluate the success of your strategy on your business. These measures can range from:
- Making best use of your existing key performance indicators using our data analytics services.
- Creating your own dashboard of key measures including your very own employee engagement index.
- Developing and implementing your own and unique employee engagement survey.
We will help you select the best and most cost effective options to increase the levels of employee engagement in your business. We're based in Northampton, Northamptonshire and perfectly placed to work with companies and organisations throughout the United Kingdom and beyond.
Our guarantee
Everything we do at Beyond Theory is underwritten by our brand promise and guarantee - if you're not satisfied then you don't pay.
Do you need to know more? Why not contact us on 01604 212505 or request information below. We’d love to hear from you.
