Employee engagement and its importance

By on March 31, 2014

Employees play a big role towards smooth operations and growth of an organization, which makes them an important asset to the organization (Vos 2009). It’s important for organizations to interact and understand its employee’s needs so as to keep them happy so that they give their 100% at work. Gone are the Days when Employees were looked at merely as a part of a machine and all of their demands for a better work place were neglected. Today they are observed as an important team member of an organization. To strengthen relations between the organization and its employees, it’s important to consider employee engagement which helps provide all the organizations’ employees a say at what they are responsible for (Saylor N.D).

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement refers to the relationship and communication between an organization and its employees. It involves the organization having a Human Resources manager who interacts with the employees, collects data from them which can be used to help improve the organization’s operations (SZE 1995). Employee engagement takes every employee interests in to mind whether they are the organizations sweeper or the higher ranking managers and supervisors. Data and information is collected and ensure both the organization’s operations and employee’s interests are met (Strandberg ‎2009).

Best approaches linked to successful employee engagement

It is not enough for an organization to expect their employees just to perform properly and it’s vital for organization heads to be prepared to identify the problems that their employees are facing before brainstorming and imposing methods to improve  employee performance.  Employee engagement can be achieved through successful implementation of the following strategies:

Valuing employee’s input

Organizations own all the machinery and tools required for production as their assets, but the employees are vital component of the organizational system, who are required to operate the machinery and tools. It’s vital to be able to ask for the employees input from an operator’s point of view so as to understand their needs and experiences, and make necessary changes in the work process to improve working conditions. Employee’s needs and points of view must be understood and solutions must be found if the organization intends on future growth (OH 2012).

Acknowledgement of employee involvement

Simply being able to acknowledge and praise the employee for a job well done will help boost their moral and improve productivity and their outlook towards the organization (Best 2008). Organization heads that show appreciation and acknowledge an employee’s contribution tend to get more productivity.

Organization head’s interaction with employees

Whether an employee sweeps the offices and drive way or is the peon, they also require to having an opportunity to interact with organization heads (PELTIER 2009). Today company heads and owners are making sure that  mingle among smaller ranking employees to collect data and improve their concerns which will help improve their productivity (PELTIER 2009).

Meeting employee requests and demands

Collecting the data and communicating with employees would fruitless if their requests and demands are not followed. Not every request may be possible to execute but the common requests and demands by the majority of employees which are well within any organizations comfort threshold should be considered (Blaug 2009).

Impact of engaged employees on performance

The entire reason for holding employee engagement session in an organization is to boost employee motivation which in turn results in improving the organizations productivity. By simply taking the 4 above points in to consideration, organization have been able to double and even triple production in a matter of weeks  (Kimball N.D). Employee engagement is done for two main reasons one being to improve the employees comfort while working at the organization which in term results in the second reason which is  increased productivity.

Engaged and unoccupied employees

On comparing engaged and unengaged employees, opposite personalities are noticed at work (Kular ‎2008). The majority of engaged employees will be optimistic and happy while working with an organization as they confidently know the importance of their contribution. Disengaged employees are mainly there to get the wages and have little or no major interest with the organizations progress as it does not acknowledge the employees concerns  (PELTIER 2009).

Importance of employee engagement

Employee engagement plays a vital role in the stability of an organization especially when increasing productivity is taken in to consideration. This is because an organization can achieve its production targets when they have employees who are happy work with them over a long period and understanding the importance of the job that they are doing at an enterprise level. This is because engaged employees master their job and skills thus resulting in giving their best for all jobs and executing all tasks in a much more accurate and systematic manner (Hussin ‎2011).

Reference

  • Best R.J. 2008 Employee Satisfaction, Firm Value and Firm Productivity, JEL Classifications: G30, G12, J41.
  • Blaug R, Kenyon a & Lekhi R. 2009 Stress at Work, A report prepared for The Work Foundation’s Principal Partners.
  • Hussin A. ‎2011 The Relationship Between Job Satisfaction And Job Performance Among Employees In Trade winds Group Of Companies, A Master’s Project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Human Resource Management Centre for Graduate Studies Open University Malaysia.
  • KimballL.S & Nink C.E. N.D How to Improve Employee Motivation, Commitment, Productivity, Well-Being and Safety, retrieved from http://www.mtctrains.com/institute/publications/ACT_CTIMproveEmployeeMotivation.pdf on 30-03-2014.
  • Kula S et.al. ‎2008 Employee Engagement: A Literature Review, Kingston Business School, Kingston University Working Paper Series No 19, ISBN No. 1-872058-39-6/978-1-872058-39-9/9781872058399.
  • OH. 2012 Identifying Stress, Injury Management Fact Sheet.
  • Peltier J & Dahl A. 2004 The Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction And Hospital Patient Experiences, forum for People Performance, Management and Measurement.
  • PELTIER J & Dahl A. 2009 The Relationship between Employee Satisfaction and Hospital Patient Experiences, Forum for People Performance, Management and Measurement.
  • Saylor. N.D The Benefits of Empowering Employees, retrieved from http://www.saylor.org/bus208/#5.2,.
  • Strandberg C. ‎2009 The Role of Human Resource Management in Corporate Social Responsibility Issue Brief and Roadmap, Strandberg Consultancy.
  • SZE M.C.C. 1995 Human Resource Management, Human Resources management Guide.
  • Vos L. 2009 People: The Most Important Asset of Any Company, Georgia SBDC Network.

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