Employee engagement

Employee engagement is a measure of how motivated employees are to help their team and organization be successful. Low employee engagement tends to result in poor performance.

Characteristics of engaged employees

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First of all, engaged employees are satisfied and content employees who feel good in an organization because they feel respected, trusted and encouraged.

But, employee engagement goes beyond this employee satisfaction and employee well-being because it involves a dynamic way of expressing that feeling of satisfaction. Indeed, engaged employees show a bigger involvement in their way of working because they throw themselves into a wholeheartedly. Their work does not only represent a wage for them, but also a personal accomplishment. 

Engaged employees do their job tasks trying to understand the purpose of the organization and how they fit in. It is a continuous behavior that changes at the pace of the organization’s evolution. As they feel comfortable and passionated in, they aim to be creative and innovative thanks to their deep knowledge of the organization's purpose and their willingness to be in a continuous learning process.

Engaged employees feel connected with teams, managers and the all organization. This connection is professional and emotional because when an organization is more than a place to gain money, co-workers are more than colleagues ; they are partners that allow each of them to grow professionally and develop their career.

This personal development goes with a feeling of empowerment, that is an individual dynamic of self-esteem, emancipation and development of skills that allows each employee to become more responsible and more productive. Indeed, empowered employees take ownership of important and decisive tasks for the organization.

Thus, a relationship between engaged employees looks like :

• encouragements in developing new skills
• regular and constructive feedbacks
• clear common goals
• empowerment
• respect
• trust.
  

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Employee engagement's advantages

It is possible to measure employees’ engagement through surveys that analyze their satisfaction, performance, strategic alignment and skills. It is an important thing to measure employee engagement because it gives an idea of the organization’s growing potential. Indeed, an engaged workforce leads to :

• better decision-making processes because employees make each decision with the organization's purpose and objectives in mind
• more agility because each action is made into wholeheartedly (especially after big events like recessions for example)
• more innovation and better initiatives because employees feel valued when they bring creative ideas to the table
• a bigger employee retention because employees aim to stay longer in the organization in which they feel good.

Thus, employee engagement is a real competitive advantage because thanks to their involvement, engaged employees bring productivity to the organization and reduce its costs in hiring new employees. 

All of this increases the chances of high growth for the business. It also helps organizations keep their talents and focus on growth instead of spending time interviewing and training new employees. Employee-centric culture is a solid factor of success.

So feeling good, psychologically safe and ready to try things, engaged employees take initiatives following the vision of the organization in which they truly believe.