Why is employee engagement so important
All companies want motivated and productive employees. Many business leaders might not know it, but the building of both motivation and productivity are supported by employee engagement. With today's young working generation and the changed way of working after the pandemic, employers need to understand how employees' values have shifted. In order to maintain and strengthen commitment in the workplace, companies now need to listen to the employees and adapt their practices accordingly.
The majority of today's employees are disengaged in their workplace, and this has a major negative impact on both job satisfaction and employee productivity.
A global study by Gallup found that only 15% of employees are engaged in their workplace. Maybe to a surprise, the least engaged workers can be found in the Western Europe and the worst level of employee engagement can be found here in the UK, where employee engagement is reported as low as 8%.
So why is employee engagement important? Well, let's start by defining employee engagement and then explain why this should matter to your business.
When we talk about employee engagement, the most accurate description lands on the emotional bond an employee has with the workplace and the employer.
A strong emotional bond makes the employee both happier and more productive in their work, increasing the chances that the employee will want to stay longer at the workplace. In short, when employees care about their job, they will do their best to contribute to the achievement of the company's goals.
How can you increase employee engagement?
To understand how your employees feel, it's a smart idea to use employee surveys to understand them in depth. And then, luckily, there are many measures you can choose from to increase employee engagement.
You might be wondering what is the best way to start improving the engagement of employees and to help you with that, we have listed a few:
To avoid the isolation of teleworking, HR company Springsworks has tried to continue with "coffee machine conversations", through chat channels where people can talk about TV shows or share funny photos. Having a weekly call or a "water cooler chat"-slack channel can help people to discuss the things that build up the feeling of community at work.
Following on this: Talk to your employees, a lot, and make sure they have what they need to feel good and work productively. The easiest way todo this is with employee surveys, where you ask relevant questions.
Thirdly: Have more check-ins, where managers can talk to their employees to see what they need to feel good and be productive. As an example, at Winningtemp, we use temperature checks where we discuss about the trends of our employee engagement temperature data on a team and organisational level. This helps us to focus on both the strengths and weaknesses we have and can work to overcome together.
Why to build up employee engagement with surveys?
An employee engagement survey is so much more than an annual effort to check that everything looks okay. The most forward-thinking companies understand the power of measuring the well-being of their employees and ensuring everyone has the tools they need to perform at their best.
The question is not whether to survey employees, but how. What is the best way to collect employee insights and feedback? Read more on Annual vs Pulse Surveys here
By asking the right questions at the right frequency, you can increase well-being, engagement and productivity of your staff. You can achieve this by creating an overview of the answers and build an action plan based on the insights from your survey, and present it to your employees. They will feel listened to, and they will realise that they are part of the company, which will make them work harder to help the company succeed.
Read more on why to conduct engagement surveys here.
Elite Hotels knows why employee engagement is important
Elite Hotels knew that high staff engagement results in higher customer satisfaction, and to ensure that their employees feel engaged, they chose to use Winningtemp.
Bianca Britten-Austin is the Talent Manager at Elite Hotels and immediately saw Winningtemp as one of the most important tools to contribute to engagement in the workplace.
In the service industry, there is a strong correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. We are constantly asking our customers how they feel about our hotels, so it makes sense to ask our employees how they feel at work," Bianca says. We now have up-to-date data that is tangible, updated in real time and comes directly from the employees themselves. Employee engagement is one of our key factors to good profitability, that's just the way it is.
Read more on Elite Hotels and how they increased their employee engagement with Winningtemp.
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When should you use a Focus Survey?
Focus Surveys are ideal when you need more than an indicator and are looking for deeper insight into the experience behind the numbers, like:
Follow up on major changes
Understand how employees are experiencing organizational changes, new initiatives or shifts in way of working.
Review projects and activities
Measure the experience after specific projects, events or other activities.
Gather targeted insights
Send surveys to specific teams, roles or business areas to go deeper into unique topics or challanges
Understand key employee moments
Explore different stages of the employee lifecycle to see how they influence engagement and overall experience.
Want to get even more out of your employee insights?
Fill out the form below and we’ll show you how combining pulse surveys with Focus Surveys can help you both track trends over time and deepen your understanding when it matters most.
