3. Defining Employee Engagement
• Many, many definitions, from very short
phrases to an entire chapter of a book
• Only one I have found refers to customers
• “How each individual employee connects with
your company and how each individual
employee connects with your customers“ (Lucey,
Bateman and Hines 2005)
6. Employee engagement & results
• A U.S. specialty mortgage company, found that
account executives in their wholesale division
who were actively disengaged produced 28%
less revenue than their colleagues who were
engaged
• Those not engaged generated 23% less revenue
than their engaged counterparts
• This study was replicated in other divisions and
has been replicated in other countries such as
Canada, Japan and Mexico
7. Results 2
• 88% of highly engaged employees believe they
can positively impact the quality of their
organisation’s products, compared with only 38%
of the not engaged
• 85% of highly engaged employees believe they
can positively affect customer service, versus
42% of the not engaged
• 65% of highly engaged employees believe they
can positively impact profitability, compared
with just 20% of the not engaged
8. Employees want to engage!
• Most want to work with organisations that allow
them to grow and develop a career
– “Career opportunities and training”
• They want to feel good about their organisation
including that it is a good citizen with a trusted brand
• Only 11% of engaged employees thinking
about/planning to leave (disengaged 50%)
• They are willing to give more to help the company
succeed
– “More opportunities to do what I do best”
9. Company Results & E.E. (1)
• Companies in which 60% (or more) of the
workforce is engaged have average five-year total
returns to shareholders of more than 20%.
• That compares to companies where only 40% of
the employees are engaged, which have an
average five-year return of about 6%.
• Another study in the United States found that
engaged employees achieve 12% more of their
goals than employees with low engagement.
10. Company Results & E.E. (2)
• Global studies data from 2004-2011 from 11,000
to over 6 million people
• “Organizations with high levels of engagement
(65% or greater) continue to outperform the total
stock market index and posted total shareholder
returns 22% higher than average in 2010. On the
other hand, companies with low engagement
(45% or less) had a total shareholder return that
was 28% lower than the average”
11. So, what’s the problem?
• Why is EE low in the UK (and elsewhere)?
• Do organisations and their leaders understand
their roles in EE?
• Two assumptions:
– Workers are the problem
– It’s all down to the immediate supervisor
12. Top 10 Global drivers of EE
1. Senior mgmnt sincerely interested in employee well-being
2. Improved my skills and capabilities in the last year
3. Organisation’s reputation for social responsibility
4. Input into decision-making in my department
5. Organisation quickly resolves customer concerns
6. Set high personal standards
7. Have excellent career advancement opportunities
8. Enjoy challenging work assignment that broaden skills
9. Good relationship with supervisor
10. Organisation encourages innovative thinking
13. Top 10 Global drivers of EE
1. Senior mgmnt sincerely interested in employee well-being
2. Improved my skills and capabilities in the last year
3. Organisation’s reputation for social responsibility
4. Input into decision-making in my department
5. Organisation quickly resolves customer concerns
6. Set high personal standards
7. Have excellent career advancement opportunities
8. Enjoy challenging work assignment that broaden skills
9. Good relationship with supervisor
10. Organisation encourages innovative thinking
14. Satisfaction vs Engagement
• A positive workforce that seeks to improve the
organisation is essentially a satisfied workforce.
However, an engaged workforce in addition has
“a clear understanding of their company’s
culture, and business strategy” to which they
closely align themselves (Coleman 2005)
• Engagement is more than job satisfaction – it
includes an emotional and intellectual alignment
between the individual and organisation, striving
jointly to improve business results
15. A model for E.E. Leadership
Management
Colleagues
Pay rates Customers
Overtime Suppliers
Benefits People Value of people?
R&R Work activities
Total - relevance, worth &
Work
reward measurability
Resources
Career growth Engagement Processes
Training & development
Ownership with whom?
Quality of
Growth
life
Work/Life balance
Physical environment
Company
Policies & procedures Working hours
Performance management Attitude to socialising
Results
Reputation
Inclusion and diversity
16. When it’s bad
Patrick Lencioni - The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees)
17. Anonymity
• People can’t be fulfilled if they are anonymous
• All humans need to be appreciated for their
unique qualities by someone in a position of
authority
• People who see themselves as invisible,
generic or anonymous cannot love their jobs
• Supervisors need to take a genuine personal
interest in employees to increase satisfaction
and fulfilment – and not just a one-off
18. Irrelevance
• Everyone needs to know their job matters to
someone; anyone
• Without seeing the connection between the
work and the satisfaction of another person or
group, an employee will not find lasting
fulfilment
• Supervisors need to help them see why their
work matters to someone
• Ask the question “whose life do you impact?”
19. “Immeasurement”
• Lack of tangible means of assessing progress or success
in a job
• People need to be able to gauge their progress and
level of contribution for themselves
• They cannot be fulfilled if their success depends on the
whims or opinions of someone else
• Motivation deteriorates if people feel unable to control
their fate
• Too often people try to rally employees around some
macro objective like company profitability
• Most employees are looking for a measure more
closely tied to their actual jobs.
20. UK – top 5 Engagement drivers
2010 RANK DRIVER
1 SENIOR MANAGEMENT SINCERELY INTERESTED IN EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING
2 IMPROVED MY SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES OVER THE LAST YEAR
3 ORGANISATION QUICKLY RESOLVES CUSTOMER CONCERNS
4 APPROPRIATE AMOUNT OF DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY TO DO MY JOB
5 ORGANISATION’S REPUTATION FOR C.S.R.
21. Remember
• Those who were actively disengaged produced 28% less
revenue than their colleagues who were engaged
• Those not engaged generated 23% less revenue than their
engaged counterparts
• 88% of highly engaged employees believe they can
positively impact the quality of their organisation’s
products, compared with only 38% of the not engaged
• 85% of highly engaged employees believe they can
positively affect customer service, versus 42% of the not
engaged
• 65% of highly engaged employees believe they can
positively impact costs in their job or unit, compared with
just 20% of the not engaged
22. Company Results & E.E.
• Companies with high levels of EE produce 3
times the shareholder returns over 5 years,
and posted returns 22% higher than average
in 2010
• Engaged employees achieve 12% more goals
• Engaged employees are made, not born
• Employees want to be engaged!
• It’s about more than the employees, and the
direct supervisors
23. Causation or not?
• Is the company successful because of high levels
of EE, or are there high levels of EE because the
company is successful?
• “Workplace measures like employee engagement
might be even more important as predictors of an
organization’s economic health (than EPS)” –
Gallup
• “We simply accept the premise that an Engaged
workforce is essential for the success of the
company” - Experian
24. The best 100 companies to work for in USA
• “That this subset of companies from the 1998 100
Best list performed better than other companies
provides, to our knowledge, the strongest
evidence to date of a direct positive link between
employee relations and employee attitudes and
financial performance at the firm level. Being an
attractive employer may create an important
intangible asset, positive employee relations, that
differentiates firms in a value-producing way. At
the very least, our study finds no evidence that
positive employee relations comes at the expense
of financial performance. Firms can have both.”
2003
