- Tuesday 24 April 2018
Employee engagement has emerged as an important issue in recent years and whilst it might be a current ‘in’ term, it’s not necessarily a totally original concept.
Issues like teambuilding, motivation, and empowerment have always been important and engagement is essentially an umbrella concept which pulls all these strands together. An engaged employee is not only happy in their job though but translates that satisfaction into higher productivity. They believe in what the business is trying to achieve, are eager to help realise those goals and play an active role in making the company a success. Their job has meaning for them and they see a real purpose in what they do.
As such, employee engagement involves addressing any issue which impacts on an individual’s ability or willingness to give their all and concerns a range of factors such as individual motivation and commitment, team effectiveness, overall employee satisfaction and productivity. But what can be practically done to more fully engage employees?
This is perhaps one of the most commons questions asked by managers. There is no magic pill of course, but from comparing best practices seen in companies where engagement is high, a list of twelve factors has been devised which all leaders need to be concerned with in terms of engaging employees:
It should be obvious that no one thing will, on its own, fully address the engagement issue, but research shows that when leadership is strong, engagement levels tend to be higher, so effective leadership is certainly the most critical first step.
Apart from raising their own game, the best leaders also pay close attention to these factors because they know that in doing so they will not only build engagement levels but more importantly that this will in turn lead to greater productivity and ultimately better results.
They understand that nothing can ever truly be achieved if employees do not buy into the aims of the business and that lifting each individual’s level of engagement, even by a small amount, can make a big difference, especially in hospitality; they really believe in the value of individual contributions or as Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, once said, ‘If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito’.
© Dobiquity Limited
