Employee Engagement: Why It Matters and How to Build an Action Plan to Improve It

Employee engagement is part of any thriving business, and vital for long-term success. But employee engagement isn’t just about making employees happy. It’s also about avoiding the significant costs you will incur by neglecting sufficient employee engagement. Here are some of the dangers posed by a lack of employee engagement, as well as an action plan for improving employee engagement in your organization.

Why Does Employee Engagement Matter?

Unhappy and unproductive employees negatively affect the company in myriad ways. Consider the financial cost alone. Fixing employee mistakes can be expensive, but what about the costs associated with firing a non-productive employee? Then you have the costs of recruiting and training someone new as well.

A survey by Gallup found that disengaged employees cost the US between $450 and $550 billion every year!¹ A study by CareerBuilder found similarly alarming data: of the 69% of employers who say they were affected negatively by a bad hire, 41% believed it cost their organization over $25,000.² Another 24% said it cost them more than $50,000! Employee disengagement doesn’t just affect your team’s productivity or morale—it affects your bottom line.

Good employee engagement, however, produces much better results than poor employee engagement:

• 10% higher customer ratings
• 21% higher productivity
• 22% increased profitability
• 37% lower absenteeism
• 25% lower turnover in high-turnover organizations, 65% in low-turnover organizations
• 28% lower shrinkage
• 48% fewer safety incidents
• 41% fewer patient safety incidents
• 41% fewer quality defects³

There are clear disadvantages to having disengaged employees, but obvious benefits to keeping your workers engaged. So what can you do to keep employees engaged and productive?

Creating an Action Plan for Engagement

SURVEY
Your first step should be determining employee engagement levels – ideally your current levels and the levels you desire. Surveys can be very helpful with the first part, but they aren’t the only means at your disposal. One-on-one meetings are also beneficial, especially if you ask good questions. Conversation is often more helpful than an impersonal survey.

OBJECTIVE
Once you understand where your engagement levels are, you’ll have a better understanding of the challenges (or ease) it will be to get you to where you want to be. If you can see that it is going to be very difficult to reach your goals, you may need to set the bar lower simply to make the goal realistic. If your goal seems easy, try setting it higher. No matter the ultimate goal, it needs to be balanced; difficult enough that your team needs to put effort into it but not so hard that it isn’t realistic or unobtainable.

OWNERSHIP
Once you’ve determined the main objective or goal of the engagement plan, each person needs to understand the role they play and the importance of their engagement in the company. Every employee should feel the confidence of knowing their role, their applicable skills, the company vision, and what is expected of them. This is especially important for new hires. If a person is hired on without a clear understanding of their role and obligations, they will have a hard time staying engaged.

TRAINING
Training is important, and its importance doesn’t diminish after an employee completes their initial training. If people have clarity it will be much easier for them to stay engaged and enthusiastic. Your company’s vision and values should be clearly communicated to every employee, and each worker should know exactly how they fit in with the company’s aims as well as the company’s culture. It’s not sufficient to communicate this on the front end, however—it must be maintained throughout each employee’s career.

LEADERSHIP
Good management is another crucial step in creating employee engagement. If employees do not respect their supervisors, whether it’s because the leadership is incompetent, disrespectful, unkind, or condescending, the employees won’t be engaged. Great managers lead by example and work hard to promote their employees’ strengths, while still working with employees to shore up any weaknesses. Supervisors play an important role in employee engagement, and should be trained accordingly and held accountable.

COMMUNICATION

Openness is an additional element that can make or break your employees’ level of engagement. A culture of transparency, authenticity, and idea-sharing can go a long way. Management transparency has a 94% correlation with employee happiness!⁴ If you’re open with your employees they will feel trusted and respected, and this will improve their overall engagement. Similarly, if you encourage a culture of openness, where people can share their ideas, concerns, and constructive criticisms, your team will develop a deeper investment in their work. Giving employees access to their leaders—though it doesn’t have to be constant or unqualified access—will make those employees more engaged. Leaders who are willing to listen, and who allow employees to speak their minds, will find that their employees are far more engaged.

AFFIRMATION

Encouragement and reinforcement are also vital steps toward employee engagement. Affirming an employee’s good work, and thanking them for their efforts, can make a big difference. Employees who receive support and affirmation from their supervisors are 67% more engaged!⁵ A person is likely to check out if their hard work is continually going unnoticed. Similarly, if an employee is consistently criticized for the slightest mistake, but never affirmed for anything good they do, they will likely shut down and grow bitter. It isn’t enough to identify and criticize failure, after all—people need encouragement, and recommendations for how they can improve. If you foster a community of encouragement, affirmation, and constructive criticism, your employees will be more engaged and morale will be higher.

FEEDBACK
Stay up to date on engagement levels. Check in with your employees and management, and provide regular feedback. Surveys can be helpful, but formal and informal check-ins are often even better. Whatever you do, make sure that you’re making reassessment a habit. If you wait too long to check in, you may find that engagement levels have dropped too far to be recovered quickly. Better to stay on top of things.

Conclusion

Employee engagement should not be taken lightly. It makes a huge difference in your productivity, morale, and total revenue, so you can’t afford to have an unengaged workforce. If you want to reap the myriad benefits of a thoroughly engaged team.

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¹http://www.theemployeeapp.com/gallup-2017-employee-engagement-report-results-nothing-changed/
²https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/the-cost-of-a-disengaged-employee/
³Percentages from http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/163130/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx
⁴https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244590
⁵Ibid.