No ‘one-size-fits-all’ to raise engagement

The Institute for Employment Studies recently released some research analysing over 40 companies in the public and private sectors aimed at shedding light on the drivers of employee engagement, and the indicators that can be used to measure this.

The key results revealed that men showed slightly higher levels of engagement than women, and that engagement tended to go down as length of service increased. Other key findings included:

•  while feeling valued and involved was an important driver to employee engagement, it did not feature nearly as strongly as expected;

• participants from ethnic minorities scored slightly higher than their white counterparts;

• engagement levels of those with a disability/medical condition was slightly higher than those without;

• job role has an impact on levels of engagement, in that 41 per cent of managers were highly engaged whereas only 18 per cent of support staff and 14 per cent of professionals felt the same;

•  staff are much more able to stand harassment from colleagues or clients than from managers;

• 40 per cent of those that thought their development opportunities were good were highly engaged.

While the research was conducted across industries – probably the most important lesson it has to offer is that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ way to increase employee engagement levels. The key is for managers to really understand their sector, culture and the needs of their employees. If top levels executives down to line managers engage effectively with their staff and implement measures to support that – then staff will engage with them accordingly.