Can we define employee engagement in fewer characters than a Twitter post? Sure can!
Employee engagement is the measure of respect employees feel for the work they do, relationships with their teammates, and their employer.
When it comes to employee engagement, this is the basic principle you need to keep in mind. Now let’s expand this concept a bit more.
Engaged employees understand the goals of their company, they know how to do their jobs, and they want to do this work; they’re emotionally connected to it and feel good about their contribution. Employees who are actively engaged are loyal, taking pride in being productive and delivering high quality work. They are willing to put in extra effort to support their team and achieve company-wide success.
This is what employee engagement IS. But what about what it ISN’T?
- Employee engagement is not employee satisfaction. “Satisfaction” is often a subjective, surface-level assessment that does not give a true reading of whether each individual employee is engaged with their work or not.
- Employee engagement is not employee happiness. Like “satisfaction,” “happiness” is difficult (if not impossible) to measure and doesn’t necessarily speak to an employee’s job performance or how well they do or don’t like their job. Instead, employee engagement is a measure of an independent employee’s engagement with their team and overall productivity.
4 Levels of Employee Engagement
When considering how engaged (or not engaged) your company’s employees are, decide where they fall on a four-level scale from highly engaged to unengaged. From there, you can better determine how to improve or maintain employee engagement.
Highly Engaged
Employees who are highly engaged love the work they do. They are willing to put in extra effort to help both their company and their team succeed. These employees are positive influences on their coworkers and help to motivate shared enthusiasm.
Moderately Engaged
An employee who likes the company they work for well enough but sees areas for improvements would be categorized as “moderately engaged.” Generally, these team members are slightly less inclined to take on more responsibility (compared to highly engaged employees). There is something about their job, the business, or an issue in their personal life that may be hindering their ability to fully engage in the work they are doing.
Barely Engaged
Employees who are barely engaged with the workplace are significantly more likely to feel indifferent about their jobs and the company as a whole. These workers likely embody an ethos of “quiet quitting,” where the bare minimum level of commitment is viewed as the path of least resistance for continued employment. While, to some, this is about striking a work-life balance (something employers should support as it creates more engaged employees in general), others view it as a method to disengage without being fired. An employee with the latter mindset is a high turnover risk and may be actively seeking other jobs.
Disengaged
Disengaged employees do not like their job and/or the company they work for. They are not committed to performance in their role and do not find alignment with the business’ goals and values. They are often a source of negative influence on their teammates and should be addressed directly (yet compassionately) for their lack of engagement in order to pinpoint the source of the problem and determine if an internal solution is viable.
The Benefits of Strong Employee Engagement
There’s no doubt about it, the more engaged your employees are, the more benefits you will see throughout your company or organization. When people love what they do, it shows! With a more engaged team, you can expect:
- Higher customer satisfaction. Employees who enjoy their work care deeply about providing the highest level of service to the company’s customers.
- Higher profits. Teams deliver higher quality service to clients which leads to increased levels of repeat business and customer referrals.
- Higher employee productivity. Employees are likely to put more effort and focus into their work, improving efficiency and coordination throughout the company.
- Higher employee retention. Happy, engaged employees are employees who stay with your company and are less likely to look elsewhere for a job.
Need help engaging your employees? EarthShare’s Employee Engagement Platform offers a variety of resources to help you do just that. From engagement tips and articles (just like this one) to volunteer opportunities and employee giving opportunities so your team can get involved and give back to the organizations that mean the most to them, breathing new life into your business with an all-in-one solution.
You can enroll your entire organization and let your employees choose how they’d like to engage, volunteer, give, and reduce their carbon footprint. Not interested in just environmental engagement? That’s fine too. Your team will have access to all IRS-approved 501(c)(3) organizations. Plus, you can discover and create new volunteer opportunities to get everyone involved.
Have any questions? Interested in a platform demo? Reach out to us at regional@earthshare.org to learn more.
