Potential Benefits and Outcomes of High Levels of Employee Engagement

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Potential Benefits and Outcomes of High Levels of Employee Engagement

Higher Employee Satisfaction 3

High Productivity 3

High Retention and Lower Turnover 3

Increase Profitability 4

Innovation 4

The Various Employee Engagement Strategies

Meaningfulness of Work 5

Supportive Work Environment 6

Line Management  8

Person-Job (P-J) Fit 8

Conclusion  10

Bibliography 11

Introduction

As quoted by Herb Kelleher, the chairman of Southwest Airlines “You put your employees first and if you take care of them, then they will take good care of you.  Then your customer will come back, and your shareholders will like that, so it’s really a unity” (CBS, 2007).  

Employee Engagement is the emotional commitment employees feel towards their organization and the actions they take to ensure the organization’s success.   Engaged employees demonstrate care, dedication, enthusiasm accountability and results focus (Allen, 2014).  It built on the foundation of earlier concepts like job satisfaction, employee commitment and Organizational citizenship behavior.  Employee engagement is stronger predictor of positive organizational performance clearly showing the two-way relationship between employer and employee compared to the three earlier constructs: job satisfaction, employee commitment and organizational citizenship behavior.  

Engaged employees are emotionally attached to their organization and highly involved in their job with a great enthusiasm for the success of their employer, going extra mile beyond the employment contractual agreement.   How an organization treats its employees has a direct impact on its employee’s engagement.  

Due to technology, business companies nowadays are making use of advanced techniques of operation.   With sophistication of technologies continue to evolve, organizations will have to need more number of employees with increased technical and professional skills; and these knowledge workers expect operational autonomy, job satisfaction and status (Markos, 2010). The efficiency and productivity now lie within the employee’s ability and commitment.  By focusing on employee engagement, more efficient and productive workforce can be created.  Ant initiatives of improvement that are taken by management can only be fruitful with willful involvement and engagement of employees.

Potential Benefits and Outcomes of High Levels of Employee Engagement

Higher Employee Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction is important to the success of any business.  Satisfied employees play a key role is an organization.  Employees are more loyal and productive when they are satisfied (Hunter & Tietyen, 1997).  The success of any company is directly link to the satisfaction of employees who embody that company.  Studies shows that business that excel in employee satisfaction issues reduce turnover by 50% from the norm, increase customer satisfaction to an average of 95% & lower labor cost by 12% (Carpitella, 2003).  Engaged employees promote and support the company’s mission, strategy and brand.  They feel a greater connection to the organization and are more likely to produce quality work, which benefits the organization as well as the customer. They are very invested in the success of the business and have high level of commitment and loyalty.    

High Productivity

Engaged employees are 17% more productivity (Harter & Mann, 2017).  They are interested and connected to what they are doing and are more likely to do it well.  Engaged employees are tense to work faster, harder and stronger.   They are often top performers & committed to ‘going the extra mile’ to achieve business success.  They will feel a sense of responsibility when they feel that they are treated well by their managers and will put their best effort to get their job done.

Higher Retention and Lower Turnover

The need to recruit and train new workers involved high cost and time consuming.  According to Right Management, a talent and career management consulting firm, it costs nearly three times and employee’s salary to replace someone, which includes recruitment, severance, lost productivity, and lost opportunities (Yazinski, 2009). Retaining good employees is the key to the success of every business.  Employee engagement will help to retain the good employees and decrease the turnover rates.  Engaged employees are more invested in the success of the organization and are become more loyal which more likely to stay with the organization.  Furthermore, organizations that have a highly engaged workforce have an increased ability to attract new, qualified employees (Tower , 2014).

Increase Profitability

Only with a solid foundation, an organization can thrive and the best way is to have an engaged team.  Organizations with more engaged employees tend to have higher profitability rates.  When employees are engaged, they become more productive and efficient, operating costs are reducing and the profit margin are increasing.   According to Wyatt Watson (Watson, 2008), highly engaged employees produce 26% higher revenue per employee.  When employees feel good at work, they work harder and produce more quality work which in the end points to a happy customer; happy customers keep coming back and will refer other potential customer.  It is a simple way to increase an organization’s profitability but many organizations keep looking outward instead of inward.

Innovation

Apart from joining and staying in the organization and having a dependable behavior, employee engagement leads to innovative behavior where employee goes beyond individual roles to collaborate with colleagues, make suggestions to improve the organization, and work to improve the organization’s standing in the external environment (Katz. & Kahn, 1978).  Innovation is critical in achieving competitive advantages.  Engaged employees are passionate to their work; they perform at a higher level and often leads to innovation in the workplace.  They strive to efficiently create new products, services and processes as they feel that they have a real stake in the organization.  This collaboration amongst engaged employees and top management also will leads to overall organization growth (Markos, 2010).