2020 was tough for employers and there has been little to no respite in 2021. The battle to keep talent was at an all time peak.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 4.5 million workers across all industries quit their jobs as of August.
According to new research of more than 600 US businesses with 50-500 employees, 63.3% of companies say retaining employees is actually harder than hiring them.
With more than a third of workers searching actively or casually for a job. Retention translates into big costs with US employers spending upwards of $2.9M per day looking for replacement workers. That’s $1.1B per year. Thats not a small number and can be particularly draining for smaller companies.
This begs the question…
What does it take to retain top talent?
If you want to win the war for talent you’ll need to develop an effective employee engagement strategy. 71% of executives believe that employee engagement is key to their company’s success.
A survey by the polyglot group found that up until today, many businesses have not prioritized tracking and encouraging employee engagement as a way to nurture productivity. Could this be the metric businesses and organizations need to save their workforce?
But investing in employee engagement doesn’t mean making your employees happy. Indeed, employee engagement does not mean employee happiness or employee satisfaction. They are all connected, but they are not synonymous.
So then what is employee engagement?
Not all experts agree on a standard definition of employee engagement, but, generally, It is based on how businesses create their environment and culture and how that connects with and motivates employees to be better in all aspects of their life.
Employers can leverage its benefits to engage the right talent and encourage a productive culture of success in their companies.
According to a guide by SHRM Foundation, employee engagement must be based on trust, integrity, and two-way communication and commitment between the organization and its members for it to be practical.
The tricky part is the implementation as it can be very unique organization to organization such that everyone has to determine and adopt strategies that work for them.
That’s great, but What are the Benefits of Engaged Employees?
Employee engagement is beneficial to your organization’s bottom line for the simple reason that it is directly linked to profitability. The math is quite simple: engaged employees are productive employees. A market analysis report by Gallup found that companies with high employee engagement are 21% more productive and 22% more profitable compared to less-engaged companies.
How do those benefits accrue? Well they come in a variety of ways including:
Employee Retention
In following on from the headline that brought you into this article, retention is a major if maybe misunderstood cost center. Employees seeking greener pastures while still at their current jobs blamed a lack of recognition, lack of pay rise, and internal office conflicts as reasons for leaving.
One way your company can retain top talent and grow is to engage employees and make them feel a part of the organization. New employees often have high expectations and desires when they join a company; they want to be a part of something greater than themselves.
Companies that nurture this feeling through constant employee engagement will reduce employee turnover and associated costs while improving staff retention.
Employee Productivity
Employers take all kinds of steps to increase employee productivity. These include timing breaks, using wearable and installation devices to monitor employees, and even growing plants in the office. But what they really need is to shift their focus to employee engagement and experience, and productivity will follow.
According to a report published on Forbes, engaged employees are as much as 17% more productive than their unengaged counterparts. Engaged employees are motivated and work with the organization’s overall success in mind. What strategies is your business using to encourage employee productivity?
Customer Satisfaction
There is a strong relationship between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Despite the ever-increasing reliance on self-service and new technologies in customer service, when a business engages its employees, the positive effects will reverberate through to the customer.
Engaged employees will care deeply about their jobs, and by extension, the customers they serve.
A major long-term study found that businesses with corporate cultures that encourage employee engagement and appreciation grew their revenue by as much as 682% over ten years. Conversely, businesses and organizations without a thriving corporate culture founded on employee engagement grew their revenue by only 166% over the same period.
When employees are engaged, their passion for the job and organization ultimately helps the business retain customers and increase sales.
Fewer Injuries, Less Absenteeism
Businesses and organizations that create a culture of wellness and invest in improving employee engagement inspire their staff to be more mindful of their surroundings. They also encourage workers to come up with more innovative ideas, create new business connections, and nurture positive entrepreneurial energy. The result is direct and almost immediate. A report by Filson Leadership Group on the relationship between employee engagement in the manufacturing industry found that companies with higher engagement levels recorded 70% fewer on-the-job accidents and 41% less absenteeism. Overall, companies that engaged their employees outperformed their competitors that did not by over 200%!
How an Employee Experience Platform Can Help
Refresh is a single interoperable platform designed for HR departments. It features a ton of tools that organizations can use to organize, integrate, and communicate with their staff. Built to offer an omnichannel user-centric experience, the Refresh Platform is modular and data-driven, highly customizable, and tailored for maximum engagement.
If you are looking for an employee engagement platform that works, you have to try the set of integrated tools and modules that come with the Refresh Platform.
Some of the core features of the Refresh Platform include:
- Engagement & Onboarding
- Universal Scheduling
- Dynamic Videos
- Nutrition Tracking, Rewards & Perks
- Insurance
- Reimbursement
Don’t Lose Your Best Team Members to the Great Resignation
Employee engagement is more important now than ever, considering the troves of workers leaving their places of work. Your business must develop a culture that incorporates employee engagement at its core. However, this does not mean you have to start from scratch; it is 2021, and there are tools that can help. Visit the Refresh Platform to discover more about employee engagement and learn how best to implement it in your organization.