What is employee engagement?

Defining what employee engagement is and what it means to your organisation is the first step to creating a more engaging and inclusive place to work.

Employee engagement is defined as the emotional commitment an employee has to their work, the organisation and its goals. There are various aspects that influence how engaged employees feel, and these can vary by organisation, demographic and employee.

Before we go on, let’s clarify the difference between employee engagement and employee experience. In essence, employee engagement is how employees feel about their work, usually measured by an engagement survey. Employee experience on the other hand is a way of thinking that considers how employees might see, hear, believe, and feel about all areas of their life at work. For a deeper dive on the difference, take a look at our guide to employee engagement vs employee experience.

Why is defining employee engagement important?

An effective employee voice strategy requires leadership to be on the same page about what employee engagement means and why it is important. However defining employee engagement can be confusing as there are lots of different understandings of it.

Employee engagement can also mean different things to different people in your organisation. For example, your CEO might care about its impact for business outcomes, while a team leader might care about a more motivated team, and an individual employee could care most about having a sense of purpose in their role.

Some definitions of employee engagement are closer to employee satisfaction or happiness. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to encourage employees to go the extra mile, be committed to the success of their organisation and be motivated to do their best every day.

What are the benefits of employee engagement?

An engaged workforce is proven to be good for business. Compared to those with low engagement, organisations with highly engaged employees experience:

• 21% greater profitability;
• 22% more productivity;
• 12% increased customer satisfaction;
• 40% lower employee turnover;
• 41% lower absenteeism;
• 70% decrease in employee safety incidents.

Sources:

• Gallup Poll: Meta Analysis Report
• Engage for Success: Insights Data Survey

How can you improve employee engagement?

An anonymous employee survey measures employee engagement and helps you understand how engaged your employees are, why they feel like this and what you can do to improve things. Deep dive or census employee surveys are typically run once per year. In between, faster, simpler pulse surveys can be used to collect employee feedback. This combination of listening activities should be considered as part of your employee voice strategy.

An effective employee survey must be based on a robust, scientific model. People Insight’s PEARL^TMmeasurement model has been designed by psychologists and data scientists. It comprehensively assesses the key aspects of employee experience and gives you a true measure of engagement.

PEARL^TM is based on the 5 indicators of employee engagement. These measure how engaged employees are:

• Pride: I am proud to say I work for (my organisation);
• Endeavour: Working here makes me want to do the best work I can;
• Care: I care about the future of (my organisation);
• Longevity:  I would still like to be working here in 2 years’ time;
• Advocacy: I would recommend (my organisation) as a good place to work.

Employee survey results help you to identify priority changes to improve engagement, and quick wins that can transform the employee experience quickly. By communicating the longer-term changes you will make as a result of your employee survey, employees will see that you are committed to improving employee engagement.

Examples of employee engagement

Engaged employees display discretionary effort. They go the extra mile to provide a brilliant customer experience. We saw this during the Covid-19 pandemic when organisations relied on their people to provide the same quality of customer service, despite a new way of working.

The organisations that prioritised communicating with their employees, listening to their experiences and making changes to accommodate different needs saw an increase in employee engagement during this time.

Their investment in people paid off for customers. Employees were willing to go beyond as part of their commitment to the success and values of the organisation.