Employee engagement

A recent research by Towers Perrin clearly shows that engaged employees increase a companies profits by more than 15% and a disengaged employee inflicts twice as much damage to the bottom line. So, is employee engagement a new mantra or a management fad. Research has also pointed out that an engaged work force does not always lead to profits. The judgment is still out there..



So what is engagement...

Engagement basically occurs at three levels - Financial, Intellectual and Emotional. Financial engagement forms the core and the other forms of engagement vary depending on the individual and depending on their position, age, maturity etc. Many would argue that their fundamental engagement stems from the emotional and not from the financial motives. Although its good to hear that, the reality is if an organisation cuts its remuneration package or if the pay is less than industry average, very few will stick with the organisation. When we are talking about financial engagement we are not talking about money greedy personnel.

So when we talk of engagement we are looking at both intellectual and emotional involvement. When we look at aspiring managers there is generally a higher degree of intellectual engagement than emotional. As they mature, the emotional component grows but the intellectual component steps in when they are involved in decision making.



Is engagement equal to commitment

Companies like Gallup vehemently argue that there is a definite link between employee engagement to commitment and profits. They link employee/ Customer engagement and demonstrate that it does impact bottom line. They talk about Human sigma which is akin to 6 sigma but from a talent management perspective. However there are many instances to show that an engaged employee need not be committed.

Facts

Globally on an average, one in three employees are not engaged with their work. It is therefore not surprising to note that employee engagement has come under the corporate radar. Engaged employees are presumed to be more satisfied, productive and act as the companies brand ambassadors. Whilst an engaged employee can infuse enthusiasm, poorly engaged employees can cause or fuel toxic behaviour.

A lot of investment therefore goes in measuring and developing strategies to measure and monitor employee engagement. There are various organisations that offer tools to measure engagement. Managers have as a result been able to see where their workforce is in the spectrum of engagement.

Challenges

Academic research clearly confirms the link between employee engagement and productivity. Despite doing all this, it is rather difficult to fuel employee engagement let alone measure it. There are few reasons why this happens, the fundamental reason being the lack of understanding of the employees engagement needs. Traditional measurement systems measure employee engagement from an organisation perspective. They focus on the culture, support and other factors that can dampen or destruct employee engagement levels. There is nothing wrong in having a set of expectations about engagement from an organisation perspective, but it is equally important to view this problem from an employee perspective. By creating measures focusing on these issues, companies attempt to understand where their employees stand.

The problem with the current measurement system is that it is uni-dimensional as it measures only the organisations perspective. Measures that monitor an individual and an organisations engagement style are more strategic and would yield better results. Companies, which fail to do so could end up with efficient measures that are not effective in revealing the true engagement levels.