Businesses recognise the importance of maintaining a happy and well-motivated workforce – for many companies this is the greatest asset they have.
But employers can easily take their eye of the ball where employee engagement is concerned.
Faced with other pressing issues, executives, managers and team leaders can stop worrying about the welfare of their workers – but they do so at their peril.
Ben Hubbard, director for Europe at Hay Group Insight, recently highlighted the importance of keeping employees in tune with organisational goals, and willing to give their all on a daily basis.
He said employers need to review their engagement strategies in order to drive performance and business growth.
Making improvements in this area – perhaps by offering additional employee incentives or by opening up better communication channels – can lead to rises in organisational productivity, Mr Hubbard claimed.
And this can have a positive bearing on the performance of the organisation as a whole, he stated.
Mr Hubbard said high performing companies are using their engagement and enablement strategies to gain a competitive edge over their peers.
“The result today is an employee engagement gap of over ten points between top and average performing companies,” he stated,
“For the winners this creates a virtuous cycle of performance as they secure and retain the best talent – for the losers a major risk to their sustained performance.”
He noted that engagement and enablement levels in the UK are “lagging many of our major economic competitors”.
And as such, now is the time for leaders to place employee engagement “at the top of the agenda”.
