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According to research firm Gallup, disengaged employees not only erode a businesses' bottom line, but they derail the enthusiasm of other colleagues. Gallup estimates that lost productivity in excess of $300 billion occurs within the United States workforce due to disengaged employees being woven throughout an organization.
What's more, a key finding of the 2011 Employee Engagement Report by Blessing White Research revealed that while engaged employees remain with a company for what they can "give", disengaged employees remain for what they can "get".
Research, science, and studies utilizing online survey tools haveshown that employee engagement positively impacts a businesses' success and outcomes in more ways than one. Among these are employee productivity, quality of work, customer satisfaction, and bottom-line profitability.
So what exactly is employee engagement? In a nutshell, employee engagement refers to the measurement of effort an employee gives in an organization, where the effort is considered discretionary effort. And what employees give to the organization is measured in how they contribute to the company's overall goals, objectives, vision, and mission.
It can also relate to the sense of ownership an employee has to his job and the company, where the engaged employee does whatever it takes to benefit both the internal and external customers for the sake of the organization's interests as a whole.
While most organizations measure, monitor, and report their financial results, few measure and monitor employee engagement. With numerous studies linking employee engagement and improved business results, it's certainly a wonder why more organizations don't use online survey software to conduct employee engagement surveys.
High employee engagement is linked to more than just bottom-line profitability, although that's the goal of most every for profit organization. High employee engagement corresponds to other performance measures including high operating margin, employee absenteeism reduction, reduction in workplace safety incidents, increased employee retention, and decreased employee turnover. On the customer side, high employee engagement, spills over into increased customer satisfaction.
The first step in measuring the engagement level of employees is through an online survey software tool used to create employee engagement surveys. Keep in mind that employee satisfaction surveys are not the same thing as employee engagement surveys, although they are connected. Next, the survey tool is used to get a current baseline employee engagement level. Once you have a baseline level, it's critical to monitor employee engagement to see if you are on the right track when making improvements to elicit more engagement from employees.
The best way to implement employee engagement surveys is through an anonymous response. Employees will then feel more confident about speaking their mind, which will allow the organization obtain more valuable feedback.
An important point to note that although it is important to measure employee engagement, it is even more important to convert the results from the data into action. Study after study maintains and reaffirms that companies with increasing employee engagement have increasing improvement levels of business performance that directly translate to the organization's bottom line.
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