Why Employee Engagement Makes Sense… and Dollars
Ever been in a workplace where you felt like just another number on the payroll? Felt unrecognized or unappreciated? You probably wouldn’t be too motivated to work any harder than you need to, right? You’d be easily distracted and very likely working much harder on finding work elsewhere. This lack of enthusiasm creates negativity within the workplace, can be evident to clients, and ultimately impacts the company fiscally.
What’s shocking is that a staggering quarter of the global workforce feels disengaged from their work (Solis, 2014; Gallup, 2013). Companies’ marketing efforts are often more focussed on developing client relationships and creating elaborate rewards programs that the very people that keep the business running are being overlooked. So that begs the question… Why aren’t more employers focussing on their employees?
Well, there’s no shortage of potential factors (Verma, 2015)… For example, the effects of employee satisfaction on the bottom line can take years to yield quantifiable results; engagement efforts require a dedicated person – or a full team – to push internal communications, to arrange team-building activities and social events; engagement efforts costs money, and distracts attention from billable work; or perhaps the importance of employee engagement is simply underestimated… Irrespective of the reasons, here are three of the greatest reasons why engaging employees makes as much, if not more, sense (and dollars) than engaging customers.
1. Higher Retention Rates
Unhappy employees aren’t likely to willingly stay in that position for very long. The Center for American Progress found that the total cost in losing a single employee can range from several thousands of dollars (for the average employee) to over 2x that person’s salary (for directors and executives) when you factor in the costs of on-boarding and training, business interruption, and rehiring efforts. Highly engaged employees are satisfied with their job and are 87% more motivated to stay (Kruse, 2012). They become an “appreciating asset” (Berskin, 2013) as they grow with the company, professionally develop, and form bonds with clients and colleagues and cultivate a positive working environment in general.
2. Positive Company Reputation
Employees that love their job, especially when they’ve been there a long time, share their experiences amongst social circles. When a company has a reputation for positive working environments, it has the potential to attract more employees (Solis, 2014; Lauby, 2015) – especially higher skilled candidates that can afford to be more selective in where they wish to work. By attracting more talent, the company can grow and expand, feed greater internal collaboration, and reinforces the positive corporate culture.
3. Improves Clients’ Confidence
When employees are working in environments they thoroughly enjoy, feel they are growing within and have confidence in the company’s abilities as a whole, they become evangelists. Their passion for their work shows in the extra efforts they put in voluntarily, and in their advocacy is sincerely transparent to clients. Clients being served by highly engaged, passionate, well-rooted staff in-turn have more confidence in the company itself. It makes sales easier to close, and customer loyalty programs are twice as successful (Kruse, 2012).
Now, I’m not saying to do away with other external marketing efforts or rewards programs, but the benefits of having highly-engaged employees is so centrifugal and compounding that it makes too much sense (and dollars) not to include strategies for employee engagement too.
