Employee engagement is a hotly debated topic in modern HR, and for good reason. With research showing that disengaged employees cost US companies around $450-$550 billion each year [1], keeping employees engaged is one of the biggest challenges facing HR today.

‍However, it's not just the cost of disengaged employees that companies need to be worried about. To understand more, you need to look deeper into employee satisfaction, what areas of work highly engaged employees have a positive impact on, and how employees going the extra mile can improve your business.

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What is Employee Engagement? ‍

Employee engagement is an overarching term that describes the emotional connection employees feel towards your organization. It also refers to how committed they feel towards the company's core values and goals. Instead of simply measuring how happy your employees are, employee engagement takes a variety of drivers into account in determining what influences performance in your organization.

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‍How Does Employee Engagement Impact Workplace Productivity? ‍

One of the biggest issues that modern businesses face is that they place too much emphasis on employees completing their tasks and invest too little in helping those employees feel satisfied, connected, committed, and enthusiastic about their work.

‍The truth is that one engaged employee can easily outperform multiple disengaged employees. Studies have shown that highly engaged teams generate 2.5% more revenue [2] than their disengaged counterparts, which demonstrates that they remain committed in completing their work to a higher standard.

‍Research shows that the more engaged an employee is, the less likely they are to be actively searching for another job [3]. Given that it can take up to two years for a new hire to be fully productive [4], keeping your existing employees engaged and satisfied at work is key to preventing lower productivity caused by employee attrition. ‍

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Benefits of Employee Engagement And Productivity ‍

One of the main benefits of increased productivity is increased profitability. Highly engaged workers are more likely to pay more attention to their work and how it will affect the company's goals and objectives, so the work that they produce will be of a higher quality. This goes on to save time and money paying for unnecessary rework, helping your company to operate at a higher profit level.

‍Your customers will also reap the benefits of more productive employees, which helps both to reduce your costs and improve your company's reputation. When employees have a higher commitment to the company with an interest in making customers happy, then they'll be more effective in solving customer problems. Customers in turn will appreciate outstanding customer service leading to increased customer loyalty and continued revenue. ‍

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How Employee Engagement Boosts More Than Just Productivity ‍

With that being said, high employee engagement doesn't just boost your organization's productivity. According to Harvard Business Review, companies with high employee engagement are twice as likely to succeed as those with lower engagement levels [5].

‍Not only that, but high employee engagement means that your employees aren't unsatisfied at work, which is a key factor in reducing workforce turnover [6]. Given that employees are more likely to look for another job if their co-workers are doing the same [7], you can avoid the employee attrition domino effect by investing in employee engagement before anyone considers leaving their position.

In addition to a higher employee productivity, employee engagement can also significantly boost your employee retention rate, which can also positively affect your company success. Highly engaged workplaces keeps employees happy by giving them opportunities and tools to take an innovative approach to resolve a problem. This will motivate employees to stay with the company longer instead of taking valuable knowledge and expertise with them when they leave for a job at more successful organizations.

Increasing employee engagement and productivity could also be a great business strategy. Engaged employees lead to job satisfaction, better employee well-being and mental health. This can translate to customer service. This means improving employee engagement can also improve customer satisfaction, which is the key to business success.

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How To Prevent Low Engagement?

There are many ways to improve employee engagement. Some focus on long-term goals, others give you short-term solutions. Here are some ideas you can try to get better employee engagement.

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Employee recognition

Employees need to know that their peers, managers and leaders recognize that their work is directly linked to the company's success. Recognizing their work helps keep them motivated, which means they are less likely to do just the bare minimum to reach the business goals.

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Set Clear Expectations

During the onboarding process, it is vital for your HR Department to show new employees what makes your company culture unique and how they play a role in ensuring your business's success. Setting clear expectations allow them to understand better how they fit into the larger picture.

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Provide Clear Employee Communication

Companies that provide great internal communications are more likely to have better business outcomes. This is because employees stay informed and heard, allowing them to work well with other teams.

However, effective communication cannot always be about the task to be completed. It is also important to create a safe channel where a new employee or an existing worker can share honest feedback with senior leadership.

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‍In Conclusion, there are numerous benefits of investing in Employee Engagement. Not only does it impact productivity of staff, but it affects employee satisfaction, customer experience and ultimately the profitability of the company. Therefore, it makes good business sense to make Employee Engagement a priority for your organization.

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Qualee's platform automates the process of assessing the employee experience, providing actionable insights that can measurably improve employee engagement. Change what you can measure with Qualee and sign up for our FREE Starter Plan today.

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[1] https://www.conference-board.org/topics/dna-of-engagement
[2] https://uk.adp.com/resources/adp-articles-and-insights/articles/w/workforce-view-2019.aspx?gclid=Cj0KCQjw4dr0BRCxARIsAKUNjWRTfe7t80OW3EoK_yG3oV8OmkQBYvgFsCk5YPmMVScGAcjT6eCYsNMaApIiEALw_wcB
[3] https://www.conference-board.org/topics/dna-of-engagement
[4] http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2012winter/index.php?startid=40#/40
[5] https://hbr.org/2013/07/employee-engagement-does-more
[6] https://www.kornferry.com/about-us//press/breaking-boredom-job-seekers-jumping-ship-for-new-challenges-in-2018-according-to-korn-ferry-survey
[7] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Turnover-Contagion%3A-How-Coworkers%27-Job-Embeddedness-Felps-Mitchell/78090abd9e36bfb562ae0a65cf94d9aadde6ddd3?p2df