The long engagement

Engagement is on the boardroom agenda and off the latest HR fads list. This publication is testament to its growing importance. There is little doubt that an organisation’s ability to achieve its business objectives depends on its engagement of employees. It makes sense intuitively and there is a growing abundance of research correlating business success with employee engagement. A powerful example is The Impact of Employee Engagement, published by IRS in 2006. It reveals that a company’s operating income increases by 19.2 per cent over 12 months in organisations with highly engaged employees. Companies with less committed employees saw operating income fall by 32.7 per cent – a 52 per cent gap.

The importance of employee engagement is perhaps clearest in developed economies where the provision of services to businesses and consumers represents a large percentage of GDP (gross domestic product). A whopping 73 per cent of the British economy’s GDP comes from a services industry that depends on employees interacting with and serving their customers or clients. As consumers we’ve all experienced what a turn-off it is to deal with a thoroughly disengaged employee.

So it should come as no surprise that knowing somebody who works for an organisation is the most influential driver of public opinion of that organisation. If your employees are not extolling you or at least defending you, you will miss out on potential customers or clients as well as potential employees. Which is why you need to be sure to engage them every single step of the way throughout their entire employee life cycle. This is no short fling. This is a long engagement. 

Typically organisations think about engaging existing rather than potential employees. But the employee life cycle starts before the person is even employed – and even if they aren’t. Acting as an employer of choice is one way to pre-engage potential employees. This can include everything from your CSR (corporate social responsibility) activity, particularly within the local community (with its accessible talent pool), right through to ensuring your employer brand is an important aspect of your overall branding activity (in the way that Nationwide uses its own employees in its advertising campaigns). It is also about being seen to be an employer of choice. At CHA, we work with organisations to raise awareness of them as employers of choice through positive editorial coverage in the relevant media. This also helps to motivate existing staff, particularly those who are chosen to act as ambassadors to tell the employer of choice story.

The recruitment process itself is an opportunity to ignite an applicant’s engagement levels. You want the applicant to feel positive about the organisation whether the application leads to an appointment or not. After all, that applicant could also be a customer or a shareholder.

Once an individual is appointed, the induction phase is an engagement opportunity that is all too often neglected. The new recruit begins to paint a picture of the organisation. Is this an organisation where senior executives take the time to make an appearance during the induction phase? Is this an organisation that supports new recruits through an informal network of existing employees? Is this an organisation that will help me understand how my day-to-day job will fit into the bigger picture?

Perhaps the most important and difficult aspect of employee engagement is that it takes continuous effort. Tending to employee engagement is much like tending to an organisation’s reputation. Both take years to cultivate, yet can be destroyed overnight.

Some light relief against this backdrop of relentless hard work to create and sustain engagement: engagement is contagious. One highly engaged employee has the power to influence others. So use this to your advantage by recruiting your most committed and engaged employees to tell your ‘employer of choice’ story and create a virtuous circle of engagement.