Employee Engagement Engagement is big in the HR consultancy market, yet there is a dearth of academic research in this area.

IES research suggests that engagement is more than a passing fad it brings clear business benefits. Engagement is seen, by the UK company that is furthest advanced in using it, as bringing real competitive advantage. However, raising engagement levels, and maintaining them, takes time, effort, commitment and investment it is not for the half-hearted. What is an engagement? The first step in our research was to investigate what HR professionals understood or meant when they used the term engagement. A clear view of the behaviours demonstrated by the engaged employee emerged: belief in the organization desire to work to make things better understanding of business context and the bigger picture respectful of, and helpful to, colleagues willingness to go the extra mile keeping up to date with developments in the field.

Engagement has clear overlaps with the more exhaustively researched concepts of commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour, but there are also differences. In particular, engagement is two-way: organisations must work to engage the employee, who in turn has a choice about the level of engagement to offer the employer. IES defines engagement as: a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation. The organisation must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee. Measuring engagement Our analysis used data from IES 2003 attitude survey of over 10,000 employees in 14 organisations in the NHS. Twelve attitude statements representing engagement were tested; all were found to sit together reliably, to comprise a single indicator of engagement. Although tested within the NHS, the statements are not NHS-specific; they can be transferred to other organisations and sectors. If attitude survey space is at a premium, and organisations feel unable to include 12 statements, an engagement subset of five statements can be used instead. This subset can be safely used, as it represents the essence of engagement and has been tested for reliability. Positive responses to the engagement statements indicate: a positive attitude towards, and pride in, the organisation belief in the organisations products/services a perception that the organisation enables the employee to perform well a willingness to behave altruistically and be a good team player an understanding of the bigger picture and a willingness to go beyond the requirements of the job.

Engagement challenges Further in-depth analysis of our NHS case study data revealed that engagement levels can vary, in association with a variety of personal and job characteristics and with experiences at work. Some key findings were: engagement levels decline as employees get older until they reach the oldest group (60 plus), where levels suddenly rise, and show this oldest group to be the most engaged of all minority ethnic respondents have higher engagement levels than their white colleagues managers and professionals tend to have higher engagement levels than their colleagues in supporting roles, although people in the latter group appear to owe greater loyalty to their profession than to the organisation in which they practise their craft engagement levels decline as length of service increases having an accident or an injury at work, or experiencing harassment (particularly if the manager is the source of the harassment) both have a big negative impact on engagement employees who have a personal development plan, and who have received a formal performance appraisal within the past year, have significantly higher engagement levels than those who have not.

The above findings show that organisations need to work hard to prevent, and minimise the impact of, bad experiences. They also need to ensure that employees development needs (including the special needs of professionals) are taken seriously; pay attention to, and value the roles of, support staff; and to maintain the interest of longer-serving employees. The relatively high levels of engagement of the oldest employees, and of minority ethnic staff, suggest sources of untapped potential within some organisations. What drives engagement? Research shows that committed employees perform better. If we accept that engagement, as many believe, is one step up from commitment, it is clearly in the organisations interests to understand the drivers of engagement. Analysis of the NHS case study data indicates that opinions about, and experiences of, many aspects of working life are strongly correlated with engagement levels. However, the strongest driver of all is a sense of feeling valued and involved. This has several key components: involvement in decision making the extent to which employees feel able to voice their ideas, and managers listen to these views, and value employees contributions the opportunities employees have to develop their jobs the extent to which the organisation is concerned for employees health and wellbeing.

The line manager clearly has a very important role in fostering employees sense of involvement and value an observation that is completely consistent with IES research in many different areas of HR practice and employment, all of which point to the critical importance of the employeemanager relationship. IES diagnostic tool The diagnostic tool

Source: IES Survey, 2003 The IES engagement model illustrates the strong link between feeling valued and involved and engagement. In addition to the model, IES offers a diagnostic tool (above), which can be used to derive organisation-specific drivers from attitude survey data. Our findings suggest that many of the drivers of engagement will be common to all organisations, regardless of sector; however, some variability is likely, and the relative strength of each driver is also likely to be contingent upon the organisation being studied. General lessons Attempts to raise engagement levels are likely to founder, unless the following building blocks are in place: good quality line management two-way communication effective internal co-operation a development focus commitment to employee wellbeing clear, accessible HR policies and practices, to which managers at all levels are committed.

It looks easy, but of course it isnt; it requires a huge amount of effort and continuing investment to ensure that all of these basics are in place and working well. Embarking on a drive to increase engagement levels should not be undertaken lightly, bearing in mind the ease with which engagement (like the psychological contract) can be shattered. 12 Questions to Measure Employee Engagement Do your opinions seem to count? Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important? Have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Five years ago, The Gallup Organization began creating a feedback system for employers that would identify and measure elements of worker engagement most tied to the bottom line--things such as sales growth, productivity and customer loyalty.

After hundreds of focus groups and thousands of interviews with employees in a variety of industries, Gallup came up with the Q12, a 12-question survey that identifies strong feelings of employee engagement. Results from the survey show a strong correlation between high scores and superior job performance. Here are those 12 questions: Do you know what is expected of you at work? Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right? At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work? Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages your development? At work, do your opinions seem to count? Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important? Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work? Do you have a best friend at work? In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress? In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Employment Engagement A company's success is predicated on having effective integrated strategies for their people, operations and finances. Of these three, the people strategy drives the success of their financial and operational strategies. We work with companies to help them achieve their business objectives by developing effective people strategies and facilitating an environment of employment engagement. Our approach is innovative and new to the marketplace. We strip out the theoretical and provide our clients with tangible, practical and actionable solutions. E3 Defined Our Employment Engagement Equation (E3) recognizes that both the employer and the employees have needs within the workplace. When these needs are consistently met and kept in balance from both sides, there is a state of employment engagement. From there, corporate objectives can be achieved. On the other hand, any weakened level of engagement, if left unaddressed, can impair

individual and departmental productivity, adversely affect operational imperatives and weaken

financial results. The E3 model is easily adaptable, so that companies can put their own unique spin or definitions around their engagement needs, to have E3 fit their own culture and working environment. As a process, E3 is a continuum that provides a resilient methodology for companies to circle back on a regular basis, and change direction as required to meet dynamic business needs and to keep the process fresh, current and relevant. We pick up where surveys leave off. We operationalize survey results. Conducting surveys on a regular basis can help you benchmark where you stand with your employees. But surveys in and of themselves dont resolve business issues or promote employment engagement they are just the first phase of the process. Next, with your survey results in hand, we work with you to target your greatest level of engagement risk. This does not mean that you value one role, job function or location within the organization more or less than another. Rather, you identify the key business drivers and the related people role, and then harness the power of your people to meet your strategic objectives. Then, we go back to your employees because we believe your people have the answers to resolve your business issues at their foundation, no matter how the issues relate to employment engagement, operations, or finances. Changes that will positively impact employment engagement need to be on the ground, not in the realm of the strategic or at 30,000 feet. Through our facilitated Action Planning Discussions, we ask your employees the right questions in the right way, and elicit information that is different and new. Your employees uncover small, concise changes that, when applied consistently, can make a tangible and meaningful difference, and steadily build the momentum towards employment engagement. The more specific and contained the change or intervention, the more effective and better understood it will be by the people implementing it and experiencing the outcome. Our facilitation of these discussions is wholly positive in its orientation. We first look to uncover your internal best practices, and then how you can build on what is already good and effective. There is no negative discussion on what has beenonly a full and complete focus on how positive things can be. In this context, we consider it of paramount importance to carefully manage employees expectations throughout the process.

Some of the projects weve worked on. We have worked with the HR and senior executive teams of a wide variety of industries in union and non-union, and private and public sectors. Over the past year, through facilitated workshops and discussions, we have helped national and global corporations: Define employee engagement for their organization and how they should move forward. Identify specific actions for change to ensure an improvement in their annual employee engagement survey results. Facilitate employee engagement discussions themselves. Identify how to increase the effectiveness of their employee leadership training program. Develop mentoring programs and then train HR staff and managers on how to deliver the program themselves. Improve the leadership skills of their senior vice-presidents and provide better role-model leadership across the organization. Improve the internal working relationships and operational efficiency of their HR team. Promote team-building. Improve their operational efficiency by resolving the people-related issues with impact. Develop and integrate its vision, mission and values within their employee engagement initiatives.