What is Employee Engagement?

As of the past 5 years, employee engagement has become somewhat of a buzzword in the professional world, but what is it? It’s easy to think of employee engagement as engaged employees, but it actually goes much deeper than that. 

What is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement refers to the general relationship between an organization and its employees. Answering questions such as: At what capacity is an organization engaged with its employees, and vice versa? and How do the two parties view each other? Employee engagement provides insight on how in sync an organization is with its employees, and where there may be room for improvement.

More often than not, employees have a perception of their organization that is different than what leadership intended. This can come as a bit of a shock, and can be hard to accept especially if the employee perception is more on the negative side. But, this is the first step in bettering your organization. 

Why Does Employee Engagement Matter?

Employee engagement and company culture go hand in hand. An organization with solid employee engagement will almost also have a thriving company culture. It’s easy to overlook company culture as it can be viewed as something that does not directly affect profits. In reality, it is a huge factor when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent, and as it’s been said “a company is only as good as its employees”.

How Can You Measure Employee Engagement At Your Company?

Like most qualitative research, in order to measure employee engagement you will need to start with a survey. An employee engagement survey will provide insight into topics such as retention, satisfaction, brand perception and company culture. 

The survey should be distributed company wide, but if you prefer a controlled sample size there are a few things to keep in mind. Your sample size should reflect the demographic of the company at large. For example, the percentage of engineers in your sample size should be equal or around the percentage of engineers within the company. 

How Do You Improve Employee Engagement?

With the new insight provided by the employee engagement survey, an organization can adjust its messaging through communications campaigns or leadership communications to better the relationship it has with its employees, improving employee engagement and overall company culture. 

When creating messaging, it’s important to take into account how employees currently view the organization – even if the image is negative. To successfully improve employee engagement you must not attempt to stray too far from the base that has already been built. 

HRO Resources

Employee engagement projects often fall under Human Resources, and your HR team most likely already has their hands full. Need help managing the day to day responsibilities of HR? Try outsourcing things like payroll, benefits or insurance with HRO Resources.