Unlocking Employee Engagement

The benefits of having engaged workers are not a secret.

Research has repeatedly shown that companies with engaged employees have lower absenteeism, lower turnover, fewer safety accidents, higher productivity and higher profitability.

The tricky part has always been in figuring out how to get engaged employees.

It turns out that managers have the biggest impact on employee engagement, according to a new Gallup report.  One in two adults, in fact, have left a job to get away from a manager, according to Gallup’s study of 7,272 adults.

In the U.S., only 30 percent of workers are engaged, while 52 percent aren’t engaged and 18 percent are actively disengaged, according to the report. Yet, employees who have engaged managers are 59% more likely to be engaged.

How to Engage Employees

Communication: Consistent communication leads to greater engagement.

Employees with managers who hold regular meetings with them are nearly three times more likely to be engaged. But the most engaged employees are those who have some form of daily communication with their manager.

Performance Management: The most disengaged employees are those who aren’t clear about what their expectations at work are. Those employees, thus, often consider annual reviews to be superficial. Instead, employees need to understand what they’re supposed to be doing and how that work meshes with everyone else’s work.

Strengths over Weaknesses: Managers who help employees develop their strengths are twice as likely to have engaged workers.