Why CEOs Need To Embrace Employee Engagement

It’s completely understandable that the key focus areas for any CEO of a successful organisation will include profitability and competitiveness. However, and unfortunately, employee engagement is quite low on their priority list of responsibilities. It is also taken for granted that employee engagement is something which falls under the purview of HR. However, considering the fact that in the present day business scenario, skilled talent has an edge, CEOs need to pay more attention towards the employee engagement levels of their employees.

A study conducted by Harvard Business Review indicated that around 71% of corporate executives ranked employee engagement as quite significant in order to achieve the overall success of an organisation. A direct correlation exists between the engagement level of the employees and their willingness to actively participate towards the organisational objectives.

Possessing an insight into the driving factors of employee engagement serves as a clear indicator of performance that impacts an organisation’s profits and progress.

Key Reasons behind CEOs Embracing Employee Engagement

A number of key reasons exist as to why leaders need to embrace, enhance, and monitor employee engagement levels.

• Helps to maintain the business profitability. When the employees of an organisation stay in touch with the overall business goals of the company, they help in encouraging the business towards greater profits. As per Workplace Research Foundation, if you increase your employee engagement levels by merely 10%, it will boost your profits per employee by around $2,400 annually.
• Helps to identify and improve new customer offerings. Employees who are engaged are more forthcoming in sharing their ideas which can increase the scope for innovation. Since employee and managers are the ones who go out into the field, speak to customers and prospective partners, it facilitates them to gather beneficial information which can be utilised in their own organisation.
• Helps to avert unnecessary costs of employees. Recruitment is one of the biggest costs of an organisation, especially one with high turnovers. If you have employees who are well engaged, it is less likely that they will quit the organisation. In fact, such employees will continue to be productive and contribute towards the overall profit of an organisation.
• Helps to lead the corporate culture. CEOs who are more able to establish a connection with employees, remain engaged with them, and are successful in tapping into their contributions on a regular basis, are the ones who can lead the corporate culture from the front. That is the true essence of leadership.
• Helps to lure the best employees. If your organisation is a highly engaged workplace and it is growing, it is relatively easier to recruit great talent. Such an organisation also has a high rate of direct referrals. Additionally, other low-cost recruitment methods also take place naturally in such organisations.

Monitoring Employee Engagement Impacts the Bottom Line

No organisation should get into a comfort zone by assuming that it is doing a great job of employee engagement. In fact, an organisation needs tools which can help in accurately monitoring employee engagement in real time to impact the bottom line. When employee engagement is poor, the following takes place:

• The costs of hiring, firing and re-training in the organisation are likely to spiral. If there is a high cost of turnover from repeated employee terminations, hiring, firing, and retraining of employees, it is a clear indication of poor employee engagement. This can create havoc on any organisation and bring down its ability to sustain.
• Direct loss of good talent to competing organisations. It is an obvious fact that when talented employees quit, they take with them their expertise as well which could have been harnessed.
• If you do not take the effort to include your employees in discussions, do not provide them with feedback tools, and listen to them, it is practically impossible to tap into their knowledge, expertise, or even gather suggestions from them to improve the business.
• When employees feel ignored, and they no longer have a sense of belonging towards the organisation, it can lead to serious problems. Such employees may become disgruntled and may even lead to employment disputes, union involvement, lawsuits, and even violence at times.

Why do CEOs Need to Take Interest in Employee Engagement?

As a leader, you may have already taken some of these engagement measures described above. However, your efforts and interest should not be limited to an annual survey. It is imperative that your focus needs to be a living and breathing part of your day to day way of running your business.

Employee Engagement Need Not be a Complex Process

It is a misconception that just because employees are complicated, so is employee engagement. In fact, with the help of in-depth insight, modern software, and real-time action taken daily, employee engagement levels of any organisation can be significantly improved. Reports which are actionable as well as visually appealing help in comprehending the forces behind productivity and employee engagement.

Taking the Help of Employee Engagement Tools to Take Action

One of the simple yet effective ways to take action which will evoke positive outcome is to gather feedback from employees. This feedback may be regarding a specific area of their day to day work, a new perk etc. You can make the appropriate changes based on the feedback received. For instance, you may decide to run the health and wellness program once a week, to improve employee health, attendance, and teamwork.

If you provide your employees with the opportunity to provide confidential insight during performance reviews, it can help your HR team to focus on the specific areas. For instance, you can ask them to provide confidential insights on how well the company is supporting their professional development opportunities. This will guide your HR team to focus on specific areas of training.

Thus, possibilities galore if you are able to tap into the wealth of knowledge that real-time employee engagement offers.