Are your employees engaged or just satisfied? Yes, they are two different terms. An engaged employee can be satisfied but a satisfied employee is not necessary to be engaged. Now you would be wondering why get them engaged? How is that going to impact the business? Isn’t the salary enough to keep them happy?

Well, your assumption of your happy employee being an asset to the company can go wrong any moment when he/she acquires a better opportunity outside your organization. So, it’s very important to keep your employees engaged so that they work on behalf of the organization and not for the organization. Remember, their performance is directly proportional to your business. When they are engaged, they work hard, get better at their jobs and stay with you for years.

In many organizations, the management is so much engrossed in numbers that they just forget about the people bringing in those numbers. Good management knows how to balance between their people and the business so that both go hand in hand towards achieving the goal of the organization.

Before moving ahead, let’s understand what exactly is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the responsive obligation that an employee feels towards the organization and its goals. It is all about individual and organizational performance. When an employee is emotionally connected, he would go out of his comfort zone to attain that extra mile for your organization. The engaged employees are enthusiastic, involved and committed to their work and workplace.

Benefits of Employee engagement

• Better performance: They come to the office every day with a smile on their face thus creating a positive work environment. This positivity brings a sense of interest for work among all employees thus increasing productivity working towards better performance.
• Customer satisfaction: Engaged employees treat the customers like royalty and tell them the positive pointers of your organization. They don’t just say what they are paid for but go a step beyond your expectations in pleasing the customer. They leave no stone unturned to satisfy the customer and help grow your business.              
• Better retention rate: Engaged employees are very much comfortable with their job and don’t look for much options outside their comfort zone.

How to engage employees?

• Know them and let them know about you and your business
• Recognize their work
• Develop leaders
• Encourage teamwork
• Authorize the team
• Focus on Culture
• Invest in people

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Key drivers of employee engagement

According to a survey report mentioned by decisionwise, the key to employee engagement is MAGIC – Meaning, Autonomy, Growth, Impact, and Connection.

Meaning: The job they do should provide meaning to their lives. If they are doing it just for the namesake, the output of such work is not going to be of any help either to the employee or the business.

Autonomy: Let them make decisions. This will bring in a sense of responsibility towards the job. If they feel the pain the consequences of a wrong decision, that is when you have accomplished your goal.

Growth: The work they do should be challenging enough for them to feel the pressure of learning new things and getting it implemented in the right way. The outcome of this pressure will surely have a great impact on the personal growth of the employees.

Impact: If employees see the impact of their work on the business, it motivates them to perform better towards achieving the goal of the organization.

Connection: Connection is directly proportional to all the above. The connection will come automatically if they achieve the rest.

Treat your employees in a way that they work to Give and not Get!