Ways to improve employee engagement

Most organisations want to know what factors can improve employee engagement in order to create a positive working experience. The great news is that extensive research has identified 5 universal factors which influence and improve engagement levels. 

What factors affect employee engagement?

All the evidence shows that improving engagement isn’t just a case of paying people more, supplying free food, or throwing a summer social. Whilst great perks to offer, these have little impact on peoples’ commitment to the organisation. Luckily, research has identified 5 universal factors that will influence engagement.

People Insight’s PEARL model highlights these 5 key drivers of employee engagement. PEARL is the best way to measure engagement, and provides a robust, evidence-based framework which helps organisations measure engagement levels and understand why people are or aren’t engaged. Learn more about PEARL in our whitepaper. 

The 5 universal drivers of engagement are:

1. Purpose – What the organisation stands for and where it is going;
2. Enablement – Conditions that enable the individual to do their job well;
3. Autonomy – Influence over your own work and healthy circumstances;
4. Reward – Intrinsic (felt) and extrinsic (experienced) rewards for your efforts;
5. Leadership – Leaders listen, support and enable positive change.

Each of these break down to two more specific sub-drivers. Employee surveys typically include 2-4 questions for each of these so measurement is thorough, methodical and actionable. 

The 10 sub-drivers of employee engagement are: 

Purpose:

• Alignment – Understanding how you fit with the organisation’s vision, values and future;
• Integrity – How the organisation treats customers, employees, suppliers and the environment.

Enablement:

• Community – A supportive work environment with good communication in and between team members;
• Resources – The right tools and training to do the job. 

Autonomy

• Mastery – Having appropriate freedom to choose how, when and where to do your work.
• Wellbeing – Experiencing a good work/life balance in keeping with positive physical and mental health.

Reward

• Growth – Developing in your career through training and fulfilling work (intrinsic reward).
• Recognition – Receiving the deserved pay and benefits, receiving praise (extrinsic reward).

Leadership

• Senior leaders – Providing vision, building trust, listening to employee feedback and acting as a result.
• Line managers – Offering support, feedback and coaching.

How To Improve Employee Engagement In Your Organisation

Whilst each of the above drivers of employee engagement is important, the degree to which each one influences engagement in your organisation will vary. For example;

• Mastery is probably essential in an academic institution.
• Integrity may be extra meaningful in an organisation that works with vulnerable customers. 
• Leadership may be critical in an organisation steering through a merger, restructure or changes.

The most common drivers of engagement are:

• My career aspirations are being met here;
• I find my work interesting and challenging;
• I feel valued and recognised for the work that I do; 
• Leaders know what’s going on in this organisation.

The chances are your organisation will be performing really well against some of the factors. However, some may have room for improvement so understanding which drivers to focus on is key to your employee engagement strategy. 

The best way to identify your key drivers is to measure engagement via your employee engagement survey. Make sure that correlation analysis is provided in your results. This is a statistical tool that compares change in the overall engagement score to changes in each of your survey questions. ​The higher the correlation score, the greater the influence the question or driver has on engagement. In addition, use employee survey benchmarks to see how your scores compare to your peers within and outside of your sector. 

​First time running a survey? Here’s how Zeelo established their survey programme.

Looking at key drivers helps focus your action plans 

In the example below, this organisation focused on Key Drivers for purpose, vision and values and career development opportunities. This meant their action plan focused on these areas, with the biggest impact on how their employees feel. They engaged employees more than if they focussed on quick-wins like new computer equipment or a fancier canteen.

How have employee engagement drivers been used since Covid?

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted our working and home lives like never before. It put even more emphasis on the importance and challenges of keeping employees engaged.

Despite the stresses and difficulties of the pandemic, there’s positive news too. Overall engagement was up 7 percentage points for clients that surveyed during 2020 (see here for the findings). Josh Bersin calls this positive disruption. Organisations were forced to make positive change with an urgency that would not have happened in normal circumstances. 

Here are some examples of how organisations are now using the engagement drivers.

Purpose

• Alignment – Organisations who have helped others in some way during the pandemic have rallied emotional allegiance. There is a clear link from people’s day job to an impact on more than just the bottom line. In obvious cases this might have been manufacturing PPE or vaccines. However, every organisation could find a role to play offering their products, services or time to those in need. Going forward, the key is how organisations align to important causes, such as equality, diversity and environmental protection.
• Integrity – One of the most significant factors driving employee engagement through Covid was treating employees with compassion and treating furloughed and not furloughed employees equally. Accommodating for employee commitments outside work, such as caring for dependants, has had an impact as well as recognising that needs are unique.

Enablement

• Community – Whilst the majority now work from home more, engaging organisations have instilled a sense of community via new communications technology and a culture of checking in, sharing and supporting others to do so. 
• Resources – Perhaps the most obvious and tangible engagement driver is ensuring people have the technology or tools to work effectively. This also includes working safely (PPE) and working in line with culture and purpose. For example, allowing customer facing staff to make decisions that will have a positive effect on customers.

Autonomy

• Mastery – The biggest cultural shift in the last year has been in the trust that organisations have had to show when their employees are working from home. This shift has positively impacted engagement. In addition, people feel part of the decisions that affect them by being involved in continuous dialogue about the changes that are happening, through employee surveys and action discussions.
• Wellbeing – Wellbeing is such a hot topic and one that accelerated during the pandemic as work and home lives blurred. Organisations sought to support resilience and positive wellbeing for their people to help them work effectively and without feeling isolated. 

Reward

• Growth – Through the pandemic, the only measure that did not see a positive increase in our clients’ employee surveys was growth. Predominantly due to a focus away from long term planning, face-to-face training and attention on the development plan, it is clear that online learning is an essential part of the mix alongside 1:1 coaching. Employees have taken time to reflect on their lives and futures, and consider their career options. At the same time, many organisations require a new set of skills as we look to the future of work.

• Recognition – There hasn’t been a trend for extravagant bonuses in the current economic climate. However, reward is often interpreted as fair pay compared to others. For example, organisations need to take furloughed and non-furloughed employees into consideration for fair pay and bonus reviews. A key aspect of reward is, of course, recognition. Being aware of the achievements of staff who may not be as visible will be essential, to encourage employees, thank and praise.

• Leadership

  • Senior leaders – In this time of upheaval as we move from pandemic to a new future of work, senior leadership is one of the most important factors to drive employee engagement. Change must be steered from the top and communicated by passionate, empathetic and inclusive leaders, who want to help employees understand and feel comfortable with the change afoot.
  • Line managers – The day job of the manager has in recent times taken second place to the responsibility for checking in with, supporting and listening to their team members, whilst ensuring they have all the resources, training and guidance they need. Coaching might be a challenge with remote, distanced working, and as things opened up, this will be essential to re-establish effectively.