Employee Engagement is
Good for Your Bottom Line

Employee engagement is not only good for employee morale and satisfaction, it is also good for the bottom line. A study by ISR found that companies with high levels of employee engagement improved 19.2% whiles companies with low engagement levels declined 32.7% over a one year period. The study analyzed three types of income including operating income, net income and earnings per share.

Firms with engaged employees fare better than their non-engaged counterparts because employees are excited and enthusiastic about their jobs. They tend to go the extra mile in performing their work, and are continually trying to improve. These employees speak highly of their employer and will readily recommend their firms as a good place to work.

A Minority Are Engaged

But employee engagement does not exist everywhere. In fact, a recent research study conducted by Profiles International illustrated that workers across a broad cross section of small, medium and large organizations in 24 industries are less motivated and want less responsibility than in previous generations.

More than 50% are disengaged or highly disengaged in their work and only 20% can be considered “highly engaged.” A whopping 16% are highly disengaged, meaning not only are they disenchanted, they may want to sabotage some aspect of your operation. Added to this issue is the potential shortfall of qualified people, particularly managers in the 44-55 year age group. As the baby boom generation toddles into retirement years, the problem will worsen, and employee engagement will emerge as the primary ingredient in satisfactory profits versus break-through performance.

Lack of engagement is a fixable problem, but it requires a different management mindset. At the risk of sounding “touchy-feely”, the old days of barking orders and expecting people to snap-to are over and generally resented unless the building is burning down.

People want to be involved in something bigger than themselves. Their involvement requires that you have a vision of where you want to go and communicate it to all involved. You must also involve your people and value their input. Pay attention to who you are hiring — fit with your culture and with the job have proven to be more important to performance than job skills. Hire people who want to be involved from the get go — let’s face it, not everyone brings a great attitude. Finally pay attention to your reputation. It’s critical to hiring and retaining the best people.

What Drives Enployee Engagement?