The Value Proposition of Engaged Employees
In today’s competitive environment every organisation wants to stay ahead in the league, and one of the ways of achieving this is by promoting innovation through engaged employees. All successful companies are aware that a true culture of innovation comes not from the leaders of the organisations but from the employees. Companies often miss the point that its employees are its most valuable asset. Most of the times when employees are asked what they love about their job, the most common response is that they love the people whom they work with. Hence, in order to build a strong culture, an organisation needs to analyse what kind of experiences it is willing to invest in creating a meaningful relationship with its employees.
In reality, it is not the people who are the most valuable asset of an organisation, but it is rather the relation between an organisation and its employees which is more valuable a.k.a how engaged is the employee. If the relationship between an organisation and its employees is more meaningful and deep, it automatically increases the employee engagement level, retention, and productivity. Hence, an organisation needs to support its employees and enable them to have the right kind of opportunities to get to know each other better, share common grounds to work upon, and have an increased level of trust. All these help in resulting in greater innovation amongst the employees.
While business leaders are certainly recognising the impact of promoting a culture of employee engagement by taking various innovations and shelling out funds, much of it is still in the trial and error phase. Employee survey results have shown that the best companies who have scored in the top 10 list, register only 38% of their employees as fully engaged.
While employee perks such as offering free food, gym memberships, and weekly office happy hours certainly add a smile on the faces of employees, these perks do not necessarily add up to a culture which engages employees at a meaningful level. When a company combines its core values, experiences, people, processes and work in unison to support and develop its employees, it results in building an emotional connect with its employees. This kind of connection drives employees to work for more than just thinking about their paychecks and contribute in the real sense towards the goals and mission of the organisation.
The New Age Engaged Employee
With time, the mindset of employees has also shifted. With changes in terms of technology, lifestyle, and demographics, the formula of workplace happiness has certainly changed and the kind of incentives that employees respond to have also changed. Employees these days are no longer satisfied in doing the same job day in and out. Employees feel motivated when they are provided with opportunities for taking up new challenges, coupled with rewards and recognition. These are in fact some of the new priorities of the new age employee.
These priorities are significant to employee engagement, and they are as crucial as supporting and developing the right kind of experience for your employees to create a meaningful workplace.
How does Employee Engagement drive Employee Loyalty and Overall Happiness of Employees?
When employees are engaged, they are ready to walk that extra mile. Every engaged employee has the innate potential which extends beyond their regular job description. Employees who are engaged are willing to tap into his or her potential, seek new challenges, opportunities, and work with great passion which drives the company towards success. Examples include a customer service representative who follows up on his own with a customer to ensure that the package arrives on time, a web developer who puts in some additional hours at work to develop a new app, or a salesman who takes the initiative to learn coding in their spare time.
Engaged employees are always drive better business results. Engaged employees align their career goals with those of the organisation, and this approach leads to bring about innovation in terms of products and services which impacts the customers in a positive manner. When employees are given this kind of entrepreneurial freedom with proper employee engagement by the organisation, the results are always win-win.
There is no rulebook to create a fully engaged workforce because what works for one may not work for another. However, that does not mean that organisations should just stay put; in fact, an organisation should always strive to create meaningful connections with its employees at all levels. It should begin with shared values of being an organisation while helping and supporting its employees. These values inspire and empower employees to strive towards innovation either via a new process, new program, new services or even new products.
