You’ve probably heard the phrase happy employees are productive employees, but what does that mean? Employee engagement, according to Harvard Business Review, is a state of emotional attachment and commitment to their employer’s mission, vision, and goals and also some degree of identification with the organization itself. If you want your staff to work well together toward achieving your company goals, then you need to ensure that your employees are engaged at work, whether they are sitting in an office or working from home.

What is employee engagement?

Essentially, an engaged employee is an employee who is excited about his or her work and does all that he or she can for the company. An engaged employee holds a favorable outlook for their organization, cares about its reputation, and encourages others to work for the company too.

When employees are engaged, they:

• They strive to know what they do to make their team successful.

• Follow the values and goals of their company.

• In their role, they are connected and supported.

• Learn and grow in their role.

It is important to note that employee engagement is not the same as job satisfaction or employee happiness, although those concepts are important. Employee engagement refers to motivation, not satisfaction. Engaged employees devote their time, energy, and talents to benefiting the company and their team.

On the inside, engagement is a feeling of purpose, trust, and autonomy; on the outside, it looks like a set of behaviors and attitudes. Here are some examples of these behaviors to help you better understand them.

How does an engaged workforce relate to customer loyalty?

It is more likely that happy employees are more likely to deliver a good customer experience and become loyal customers; happy customers are more likely to become loyal customers; your business benefits from happy employees, who are more likely to stay in their jobs for longer, getting better at what they do, and making more satisfied customers. An employee engagement strategy based on 'mutual gains' is at the heart of motivation and people management.

The metrics to monitor for employee engagement.

You can't improve what you can't track or change. the following metrics are the most relevant when tracking your organizations employee engagement success.

• Employee turnover rate - you can calculate this from year to year. Turnover rate is the total number of people who leave your company over a certain period of time. While optimal turnover rate is 10%, most companies fall in to the 12% range-20%

• Employee retention rate - on the flip side, this metric is the number of people who have stayed with the company over a certain period of time. To calculate , take the number of employees you had at the beginning of the time period and the number of employees you had at the end of the time period. Then divide the number of current team members by the starting number of team members. Anything over 90% is considered good
  

• Absenteeism - Absenteeism at work refers to an employee's frequent absences from work without valid reason. Absenteeism does not include instances outside the employee's control, such as illness or car problems.

• Employee satisfaction - This is the state of being happy about one's job and workplace conditions and it is used as one measure of company success.

• Employee performance - based on your core values, company standards, and position KPIs overall the team meets or exceeds the requirements.

• Glassdoor.com rating - Of the 32 million monthly users who use Glassdoor to find a job or research potential employers, 61% say they check company reviews before applying.

• ROI on employee engagement - do you see improvement in the other metrics based on efforts that you put in place to increase employee engagement. 

• Customer happiness - Engaged and happy employees will care and be invested in the customer experience and strive to make sure customers are satisfied. 

An engaged team makes you the employer of choice.

When your current team is engaged and happy, you start to create employee advocacy. Your existing team members will have a hand in recruiting, non-sales team members will talk about what the company does to anyone that could be a potential customer, and will refer friends and former colleagues to come at your organization. With high employee engagement, you can easily promote and share your company culture online to make your recruiting efforts easier.

Would you like to get a pulse on your current team? Schedule a call to find out how.