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Embracing employee engagement in 2014 

In a recent HR Zone article, organisations were encouraged to go back to basics. Firstly, we have to go back to basics. Perhaps the board need a gentle reminder that if employee engagement is done well a company will see productivity and profitability levels rise; they’ll also see staff taking fewer days off sick, and employees will be prepared to go the extra mile to achieve the company’s objectives. When it’s put to any board member in this way the facts speak for themselves.

Benchmarking performance

To really push employee engagement up the business agenda HR needs to start benchmarking performance and analysing staff engagement metrics with key business metrics. At a simple and basic level, comparing your engagement scores against metrics such as staff turnover and sickness and absence is a good start. If you have access to more information, such as customer feedback, sales figures, utilisation and productivity then more detailed, in depth analysis can be conducted to look at the relationship between employee engagement and the wider business.

Strategic HR – finding the boardroom

Employee engagement also offers a real opportunity to push the HR function firmly up the board’s agenda. It’s been said for many years that ‘people are your best assets’, but if each individual is prepared to go the extra mile the possibilities are endless. Therefore it’s essential that HR starts to push engagement into the corporate strategy. It can no longer be seen as a side project, it must become part of a company’s DNA to ensure you fully reap the benefits of a fully engaged and perhaps empowered workforce.

Retaining top talent

Embracing employee engagement as the UK heads out of recession will also help companies retain their top talent as fresh and new exciting opportunities pop up elsewhere. In the past high achievers have always been the first group to search for new openings after a recession. HR needs to engage with this group and create specialist strategies to keep their most talented resource at their workplace.

How to embrace employee engagement in 2014:

  • Shift in linking engagement metrics with key business metrics.
  • Engagement to become part of organisation’s DNA.
  • Consider moving to an empowerment culture in workplace.
  • Engage top talent to ensure they don’t jump ship
  • Support the ‘squeezed middle’ to ensure your business in ship shape.
  • Don’t bang on about engagement!

The original article was published here.

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