What Really Matters When It Comes To Employee Engagement?

In today's knowledge economy, people are often a company's most valuable asset, and losing talented employees can be extremely expensive. One question all employers have asked themselves is, “How do we keep top performers?” This is especially crucial right now, with the desire for good talent at an all-time high, and fierce competition for that limited talent pool for Romanian IT labor market. Therefore, employers need to develop strategies for recruiting the right people — and retaining their current high performers.

Employee retention involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time. Corporate is facing a lot of problem in employee retention these days. Hiring knowledgeable people for the job is essential for an employer. Employee recruitment and retention are one of the major issues facing the IT Sector. But retention is even more important than hiring. There is no end of opportunities for talented person. There is ample number of choice around employees. In olden days salary was all that matters, but today it’s just one among the components. Some of the other elements are like work environment, relationship, freedom to work etc. Due to high level of attrition it is important to know whether the employees are satisfied with their job and organization, if not the reason for leaving. Retention is a top business priority for more than 80% of organizations. More than one half of HR professionals in IT Sector views retention as one of their pressing issues. It is not very often that the management would be aware of the true reason as to why an employee would be leaving their organization.

When confronted with understanding engagement, what drives it, how it can be nurtured and what initiatives can be designed to measure and improve it, companies rarely know where to start. Employee engagement drivers are a great starting point for that. Learning what motivates people, what drives their actions and how this translates into productivity, performance and loyalty to the company, is the first step in acting towards employee engagement, rather than just talking about it.

Over the years, these drivers have changed and shifted positions, reflecting economical conditions, generational changes and overall workplace trends:

1.     The quality of the people they work with - That's why hiring is so important, to set a high standard for everyone it hires. Great workplace is stunning colleagues and not espresso, grand parties etc. We do some things but only if they are efficient in attracting and retaining stunning staff. The more talent we have, the more we can accomplish.

2.     The feeling that the work they do is meaningful - People want to do more than just make a buck," Bock said. "People want to do something that means something. Plus, giving employees a sense of purpose has benefits beyond retention. Wharton professor Adam Grant that found when people are able to connect their jobs to something meaningful, their productivity increases as much as five times. 

1. Management/Leadership

In their 2016 Employee Engagement Trends Report, Quantum Workplace identified management/leadership as one of the most important engagement drivers. While CEOs and other senior leadership set the vision and strategy for the company, which can be a decisive engagement driver, the reality is that in most companies middle managers have an even bigger influence on engagement than even senior executives. That’s because managers are the direct link between the C-suite and the rest of the organization. Transparency and communication are the basis of building their trust in leadership and gaining their engagement.

An analysis performed by Dale Carnegie to determine the link between supervisor and organization evoked feelings revealed that it’s the immediate supervisor who is the chief emotional driver in the workplace; reactions to him or her explain 84% of how employees feel about their organization.

2. Relationships with co-workers

When you have a close friend at work, you feel a stronger connection to the company, and you’re more excited about coming into work every day. You attach yourself to the company’s purpose and collaborate better to create success for the business.

Research shows that employees’ relationships with coworkers and supervisors will increase the psychological meaningfulness and employee engagement in the workplace.This study also details how psychological conditions such as meaningfulness, safety, and availability, can affect the individual engagement to roles or duties. Psychological meaningfulness, for example, is the work values associated with standard or individual idealism. Individuals who feel personally meaningful will be motivated to give 110% at work.

3. Meaningful work

The forth report in Deloitte’s Talent 2020series, surveyed 560 employees across virtually every major industry and global region. One of the three main emerging challenges that they identified: meaningful work.

It’s impossible to be engaged at work if you feel like the work you’re doing is not engaging. Situations like these create strong feelings of unhappiness, inadequacy and frustration.

Meaningfulness of one’s job can be thought of as the feeling that one’s job contributes to society as a whole, a specific community, a cause, etc. At the core of an organization, a clear mission and vision are essential because they not only provide guidance and direction but also appeal to stakeholders (e.g., clients, investors) to get their buy-in. The effectiveness of communicating this purpose to employees is equally important.

Management may spend a considerable amount of time on communication through speeches and newsletters, but if the majority of employees do not identify with the message, it may be a sign that the vision is either under-communicated or that employees are not being shown the link between their work and the organization’s overall mission. Making a difference toward a cause that is bigger than any one individual or the organization can offer a sense of fulfillment to employees.

Although these are the top three employee engagement drivers identified in recent years, there are a number of other drivers that are equally important, such as career development, compensation, benefits, work environment, or company culture. Together, they form an intricate system that motivates people to give their best, to actively help grow the company they work for and to feel engaged with what they do every day.

It’s important that each company analyze their own internal engagement drivers, that stem from their unique cultures, ways of working and business goals. An effective employee engagement strategy can only be designed and implemented after these particular drivers have been identified and understood.