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What Are the Benefits of Employee Engagement?

 ·  3 minute read

In 2019, the CONNECT2Lead Blog focused heavily on employee engagement. It's the key to success in any business initiative, so it deserved all that attention! As we wrap up the year, we're bringing you guest posts from experts in HR and related fields to share what they're saying about employee engagement, too

Original Post by Jennifer Leake at AssessmentPros.com

Employee engagement isn't a new idea. In fact, one of the first books on employee engagement to become a bestseller (Zapp!: The Lightning of Empowerment: How to Improve Quality, Productivity, & Employee Satisfaction by William C Byham) was published in 1988.

Zapp! illustrates, in the form of a fable, the contrast between a thriving, high-empowerment organization and an organization that limped along because it consistently undermined the enthusiasm and energy of its employees.

In the decades since Zapp! was published, hundred of business books have been written to extol the value of employee engagement. Why, then, has this old idea suddenly risen to the level of new buzz word? Why are companies like Boeing, Apple, 3M, PepsiCo, Smithfield Sausage, IBM, Progress Energy, Owens Corning and LinkedInnow making employee engagement a key ingredient in their overall business strategy?

Turns, out, it's an old idea whose time has come.

During the recession, businesses scrambled to trim costs to the bone and the HR department was often the first to get the axe.  Workforces were trimmed with massive layoffs. As unemployment rose, many companies adopted an attitude that anyone could be replaced quickly and cheaply. Pay and benefits were cut. Employees were given to understand that they were the least important asset of the companies they worked for.

When the recession ended, businesses were slow to back away from their earlier survival strategy of demanding workers "do more with less." Many of them failed to see substantial growth, even as the economy opened up, and HR professionals were hard pressed to prove that failure to invest in employees was having a negative impact.

Now, however, five years after the official end of the recession, an overwhelming body of studies document this fact: the higher the level of employee engagement, the higher the performance of the business. (See Forbe's list of 28 research studies here.)

CEO's of some of the largest and most successful businesses in the United States are pointing to employee engagement as the key to their success.

Kevin Kruse, a serial entrepreneur who built and sold several multimillion dollar technology companies, has written extensively on the subject of employee engagement, claiming it has been a key driver in his ability to grow successful businesses. Kruse has authored several books extolling the value of employee engagement (including the NY Times bestseller We: How To Increase Performance And Profits Through Full Engagement.)

Kruse describes his mission today as "to convince everyone that wholehearted leadership for employee engagement is the key to unlocking both dramatic business results and to better health and relationships for individuals."

The benefits of employee engagement are not limited to huge corporations or multimillion dollar companies. Businesses of every size and in every industry are seeing actual proof that employee engagement is the cornerstone of a strategy that leads to greater growth and profits.

As a Certified Management Consultant with over 20 years of experience, I have guided numerous businesses, large and small.  through the process of creating employee engagement by using assessments to better understand and manage current employees and new hires.

Assessing your current workforce helps assure you that each person is in the job that best suits their skills and their personality.  Adding assessments as part of your hiring strategy, you can better choose applicants that suit your company's needs and culture. This means new hires hit the ground running, blending more quickly into existing work teams and becoming an asset sooner.

An employee in the job that's the best fit for their skills and personality is a more engaged employee. Let me show you how to createa plan for hiring and managing to encourage your people to unleash their potential and express more of their capabilities.

If you are the owner or manager of a business with six or more employee and you'd like to learn how to assess and strategize what it will take to get your team more energized and engaged, let me help you:

  • identify your company’s unique needs with an objective, outside viewpoint;
  • work with you to determine what has worked for you in the past, and what needs to be changed;
  • choose the best hiring system solution for your needs, situation and budget.

 

Special thanks to Jennifer Leake for authorizing PFPS to re-publish this post. To see the original post and other great content from Jennifer, visit AsssesmentPros.