Employee Participation & Employee Engagement Strategy

What is employee engagement? Employers want employees who will do their best work or ‘go the extra mile’. Employees want jobs that are worthwhile and that inspire them. More and more organisations are looking for a win-win solution that meets their needs and those of their employees. What they increasingly say they are looking for is an engaged workforce. So what is employee engagement? It can be seen as a combination of commitment to the organisation and its values and a willingness to help out colleagues (organisational citizenship). It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation. Engagement is something the employee has to offer: it cannot be ‘required’ as part of the employment contract. The CIPD report Creating an engaged workforce considers some of the organisational issues that contribute to - or inhibit - employee engagement in different organisational settings. Why organisations are interested in employee engagement Employers want engaged employees because they deliver improved business performance. CIPD research has repeatedly demonstrated the links between the way people are managed, employee attitudes and business performance: • When employers deliver on their commitments (when by their actions they fulfil employees’ expectations) they reinforce employees’ sense of fairness and trust in the organisation and generate a positive psychological contract between employer and employee. See our factsheet on that topic. • The high performance or ‘black box’ model produced by Bath University builds on the psychological contract but emphasises the role of line managers in creating conditions under which employees will offer ‘discretionary behaviour’. The model recognises that employees have choices and can decide what level of engagement to offer the employer • Organisations increasingly recognise the importance of their ‘brand’. Engaged employees will help promote the brand and protect the employer from the risks associated with poor service levels or product quality. Similarly a strong employer brand will help in attracting and retaining employees. How to build an engaged workforce The first step is to measure employee attitudes. Most large employers in both private and public sectors now conduct regular employee attitude surveys. The results typically show what employees feel about their work on a range of dimensions including, for example, pay and benefits, communications, learning and development, line management and work-life balance. Attitude survey data can be used to identify areas in need of improvement and combined with other data to support performance management. The drive for an engaged workforce needs to build on good people management and development policies and the active support of line managers. People management strategies and policies need to be aligned with those of the wider business. Employees need to understand how their work contributes to organisational outcomes. A minority of employees may not want to be engaged; organisations may need to give particular attention to recruitment and communications. There is no short-cut to building and maintaining employee engagement but the time, effort and resource required will be amply repaid by the performance benefits.