Best Practice: Employee Engagement

14 September 2013, Singapore: Another close HR friend asked me about employee engagement (EE) topics ... so I decided to share this short article on EE best practice  from Halogen Resources ... simple, short article and powerful article that is stimulating and structuring my thoughts.  

Are you frustrating or engaging your employees?

Having an engaged workforce is critical to organizational success. Employee engagement researchers, including Towers Perrin, have shown that companies with high levels of employee engagement have better financial results, including higher: operating income, net income growth and earnings per share. 

What do employees need to be engaged?

The employee engagement research says that to be engaged, among other things, employees need:

• Direction and a larger context for their goals / work
• The opportunity to do their best
• Feedback / praise on their performance / progress
• Opportunities for development and career progression 

How are engaged employees better?

Gallup and others have found that engaged employees are more:

• productive and profitable
• customer-focused
• loyal to their employers
• safe 

So what can you do to boost employee engagement?

Implementing talent management best-practices is one great way to address employee needs and create a culture that fosters employee engagement. 

Talent management best-practices that foster employee engagement

• Maintaining a regular, ongoing, two-way dialogue about performance and learning needs
• Ensuring employees have clear, achievable SMART goals that are directly linked to organizational goals, and regularly revisiting those goals
• Fostering employee development and career progression through coaching, training, succession planning/talent pools, etc. 

Think you're already doing a good job?

• Nearly one third of employees think their managers fail to effectively communicate goals
• One third say they lack the authority to carry out their jobs effectively
• 40% say they don't receive regular, clear feedback on their performance from their manager