About 3 million Americans quit their jobs each month. In fact, a third of them leave even before completing six months into their roles. Research by Glassdoor in 2016 found out that 53% of employees quitting their jobs were confident about finding alternative positions in six months.
Top reasons include a poor onboarding experience, not satisfied with their roles and responsibilities, and their lacking engagement with their employers and organization as a whole. This means that unless you give them a compelling reason to stay, they are more than happy to go looking elsewhere.
With only 33% of employees reporting that they felt engaged at work, led to the sudden rise of employee engagement strategies being adopted by companies across sectors at breakneck speed.
Purpose of Employee Engagement
With competition being fierce, retaining top talent is a challenge, and so is the rising hiring costs. That's why employee engagement is something that modern-day organizations cannot turn their back to. All they need to do is to weigh in the benefits – higher profits, innovative and productive workforce, company success.
In an employee engagement survey, approximately 71% of managers believed that employee engagement was one of the most vital factors that could determine the overall success of the organization.
Employee engagement is fast turning into one of the most trusted indicators of gauging employee satisfaction at their workplace. With the infusion of this sentiment, employees are happier and put in energy, enthusiasm, and purpose into their allocated roles.
Employee Engagement Is Key to Business Success
Salary and compensation whilst important to employees are not the core issues of turnover. The foundation needs to be built on connection, communication, and engagement. According to the Harvard Business Review, engaged organizations have doubled their rate of success.
Therefore, let’s take a look at the strategies that can work in favor of your business:
1. Business with Engaged Employees Have Superior Financial Health
All the key parameters of business success, such as increased growth in revenue, net profit margin, earnings per share, customer experience, are directly correlated to employee engagement.
Employees who feel invested in the business feel like business owners. Hence, creativity and efficiency are traits that easily come forward as they feel a sense of purpose. Having a platform to communicate challenges and being a part of working out the solution creates a better work environment for all.
Priorities, commitments, goals become shared objectives. With a sentiment of cohesion, the workforce acts in the company’s best interests.
2. Productivity Flares When Employees Are Engaged with The Business
Companies who wish to progress to the next level all strive towards high levels of employee engagement. This is because engaged employees are frequently able to find solutions to handle challenging business and customer requirements that, in turn, drives organizational success.
For instance, a productive employee understands the importance of customer experience. They are the best judge of unearthing consumer needs, guiding them towards purchase decisions, and delivering top-class customer service.
Regardless of their position in the company, committed employees have a higher probability of going that extra mile to ensure greater levels of customer satisfaction.
3. Employee Turnover Possibilities Are Minimized for Engaged Employees
Statistics say that a disengaged employee is 12 times more likely to quit his or her job in the first year of employment. As an organization, you need to invest in employees developing a strong connection with the business to retain good talent.
High-performing companies that invest in employee engagement allow their employees to take control and do what they are great at. The idea is to keep challenging them and offer lucrative opportunities for growth internally.
Ensure that you address every stage of an employee’s life cycle within the organization. For example, if you start with a poor onboarding experience, the chances are that your employees will feel disengaged within three months of joining the company. This disengagement will translate into other areas of their work, ultimately forcing them to look for alternative options of employment. You can also perform an employee credit check to ensure that you are hiring the right applicants from the beginning of the process.
4. Invest in Employee Feedback
Use employee engagement surveys to learn what your employees think of the leadership and by business extension. If unsure of what to ask, get the HR department to look up survey question examples online.
Readymade templates are available with the help of an online survey maker. Circulate it amongst your employees and assess the results once you get their responses. These insights are essential as it can help the business measure employee engagement levels and identify critical gaps and opportunities for improvement.
These insights emphasize the importance of taking a holistic approach to the employee experience, from onboard to exit, and key points in between.
Building A Better Workplace with Engaged Employees
Being employed today is more than just a 9 to 5 job. Moreover, employees can change over a while as they progress across crucial stages of their lifecycle. With a holistic approach, companies can approach employee experience through a custom-designed strategy that is right for your business.
Whatever that you do, you must ensure that employees feel more involved and enthusiastic about their roles and overall be more committed to the organization. That’s the recipe for success.
