Employee Engagement: The Key to Company Success

Employee engagement affects almost every aspect of your business, from productivity and profitability to employee turnover and customer satisfaction. The correlation is simple: the higher the percentage of engaged employees at your company, the more money you’ll make in the long run. 

Yet, the majority of employees in the world are disengaged. And disengaged employees cost companies tens of thousands, if not millions, of dollars every year. 

If companies don’t work on improving their employee engagement levels, they risk losing their competitive edge - both among their customers and future employees - and higher attrition rates.  

But what is employee engagement, how does it really contribute to your company’s success, and - most importantly - what can you do to improve it? Let’s answer these questions. 

What Is Employee Engagement

Many companies wrongly assume that employee engagement means keeping their employees satisfied at work. So, they try to increase job satisfaction by gamifying work, organizing pizza Fridays, or putting a foosball table in the lobby. 

Sure, job satisfaction is a key factor that contributes to employee engagement, but it’s not the same thing. 

Engaged employees are satisfied with their jobs, but satisfied employees are not necessarily engaged. 

Mere job satisfaction can also mean that your employees are satisfied with doing the bare minimum to keep their jobs, but they don’t feel motivated to do their best, which is what employee engagement is ultimately about. 

Employee engagement goes far beyond gamification at work. It’s about creating a healthy and psychologically safe work environment where employees feel appreciated, valued, and recognized for their efforts. 

Ultimately, employee engagement is a feeling of deep appreciation and belonging that keeps your employees motivated, inspired, and putting their best foot forward to drive the company’s growth and success. 

What’s more, employee engagement isn’t something that can be fixed once and for all. It’s a continuous process that adapts to the ever-evolving employee engagement trends. 

What motivated employees to feel more engaged at work 5 years ago may not necessarily be what motivates them today. Take the possibility of remote or hybrid work, for example. Now, the flexibility of remote work is one of the key elements that drive employee engagement in the workplace.  

Employee Engagement is Key to Company Success

Keeping your employees engaged at work will inevitably translate into multiple benefits for your business. 

Even though employee engagement is a general feeling of enthusiasm, happiness, and well-being at work, it does alter employee behavior and leads to concrete results for your company. 

For starters, engaged employees are 22% more productive than unengaged employees, according to a study by Gallup. Engaged employees also tend to perform better because they’re generally more productive and motivated to meet, or even exceed, set goals. 

But increased employee productivity and better employee performance aren’t the only benefits of keeping a high level of employee engagement in your company. 

The impact of employee engagement extends to other key aspects of your company’s success, such as: 

• A reduced turnover rate: because engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company voluntarily. 
• Better customer experience: because engaged employees are willing to give their best and treat customers better than unengaged employees. 
• Innovation-led approach: because engaged employees feel part of the life of the company and are willing to adapt to changes and share their ideas for improvement. 
• Improved company image and talent acquisition: because engaged employees naturally become your best brand ambassadors. 

All of these aspects, from employee productivity to a reduced turnover rate, lead to higher profitability for your company. 

In fact, another Gallup survey has found that companies with a higher level of employee engagement are 21% more profitable. 

As you can see, the importance of employee engagement as a driving force behind your company’s long-term success cannot be understated. The higher and more consistent the engagement, the better the business results. 

Best Practices to Keep a Good Employee Engagement Level in Your Company 

Acknowledging the role that employee engagement plays in your company’s growth and success is one thing. Knowing how to actually improve and maintain a good employee engagement level in your company is another. 

Here are some of the best practices you can implement company-wide to keep your employees engaged. 

Measure Your Employee Engagement Levels Regularly

To come up with the right employee engagement strategies, you must first understand where you stand. 

Although employee engagement isn’t something you can accurately measure in terms of KPIs, there are many practices you can implement to gauge the levels of engagement in your company. 

Employee engagement isn’t a black-or-white kind of deal. There are various levels of engagement, ranging from actively engaged to actively disengaged. Some employees may find themselves in the middle, feeling “mildly disengaged” or “passively compliant.” It’s up to you to measure and define that.   

Things like conducting regular employee surveys, organizing 1:1 meetings with employees, and monitoring data from your digital tools and HR software can help you measure employee engagement and understand what levels of engagement are the most predominant in your company. 

Ideally, you’ll want to appoint an employee engagement manager whose role within your company will be to measure and monitor the levels of engagement and come up with effective employee engagement strategies to address the most pertinent issues.

Determine the Employee Engagement Areas to Work On

You can’t effectively improve the level of engagement within your company unless you have a well-defined employee engagement plan, which should be based on the data and insights you’ve gathered. 

It’s simple: without a plan, you won’t really know how to translate these insights into actionable steps. A proper employee engagement plan outlines the challenges you must address and the strategies you’ll use to address them. 

Typically, your plan should encompass strategies that will improve the state of each of the 5 areas of employee engagement: 

• Work environment,
• Relationships at work,
• Company culture,
• Employee input in company growth,
• Employee personal development. 

Note What Works Well From Engaged Employees

There are many factors that impact employee engagement. From a fair pay structure to good management, different employees value different aspects of their jobs and the workplace more than others. 

To come up with the right initiatives to improve employee engagement levels, you must first find out what your employees value the most and what they expect from their workplace. If you fail to understand that, you’ll struggle to improve and maintain high levels of engagement. 

A good practice is to ask already engaged employees what makes them feel satisfied, motivated, and enthusiastic at work. 

Once you identify the factors that contribute to their high engagement levels, you can then leverage those insights to improve the work environment for others. 

What do they enjoy the most about their roles, job responsibilities, and the workplace in general? Whether it’s your employee innovation program or flexible work structure, you can implement similar initiatives or reinforce existing ones to boost overall employee engagement.  

Choose an Employee Engagement Strategy 

Employee engagement can be approached in many different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, it requires a multifaceted and global approach. 

To identify how to best approach employee engagement within your company, you must first measure what works and what doesn’t. 

Only once you have a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in your company can you come up with the right set of employee engagement strategies. 

These strategies should address the identified areas of improvement while reinforcing the positive aspects already in place. 

Whether it's fostering a culture of innovation, creating employee recognition programs, rethinking your leadership and management style, or all at once, the ultimate goal of your employee engagement strategy is to create an environment where employees feel valued, heard, and motivated to contribute their best work.

Use the Right Employee Engagement Tools

Implementing the right software can help you execute your employee engagement strategy effectively. In short, implementing employee engagement software in your company will facilitate and enhance the interaction between the company and its employees. 

Employee engagement tools aren't a one-size-fits-all kind of tool but rather different platforms that help you track, manage, and improve employee engagement within your organization. 

The key to making sure that these tools are actually effective in implementing your strategies is to choose the ones that align with your goals and needs. 

You may want to implement one or multiple tools to address various areas of your employee engagement strategy, such as: 

• Idea and innovation management platforms (like Ideanote),
• Employee feedback and survey platforms (like SurveySparrow),
• Employee recognition platforms (like Kudos),
• Corporate social media platforms (like Workvivo), 
• Employee learning platforms (like Leapsome),
• OKR software (like Lattice),
• Performance management platforms (like 15Five). 

Employee engagement is a multifaceted concept that requires a customized and strategic approach to be effective. 

To choose the right strategies to boost the levels of engagement in your company, you must understand that engagement can vary greatly among employees, with different levels and types. 

But most of all, you must understand that true engagement is about creating a work environment where employees feel valued, heard, and motivated. It's a continuous process rather than one or two random, punctual initiatives. 

Overall, improving employee engagement within your company is not about a one-size-fits-all solution but about understanding and addressing the specific needs and aspirations of your workforce to foster a committed and productive environment.

Employee Engagement Plays at the Company Culture Level

The employee engagement level is often the reflection of the company culture. A high percentage of engaged employees typically means that people are happy to work at the company and feel treated well at the workplace. 

On the other hand, low levels of employee engagement translate to low productivity, high turnover rates, and a general lack of enthusiasm among employees. This often means that employees feel poorly treated and are waiting for the opportunity to quit. 

That’s why companies must understand that employee engagement isn’t merely a question of implementing programs or new policies. The level of engagement is a direct result of the company’s overall culture and how well they treat their employees.

A culture that fosters respect, recognition, and growth opportunities will naturally encourage higher levels of engagement. 

It's not just about providing benefits and organizing corporate game nights. It's about creating an environment where employees feel genuinely supported and invested in the company's vision and goals.

Everyone Owns Employee Engagement 

Everyone at the company is responsible for improving and maintaining employee engagement. Every employee, manager, HR representative, or senior leader at your company has an impact on one or more areas of employee engagement. 

While leaders are often responsible for setting the tone of the overall company culture, managers are the ones who implement these cultural values on a day-to-day basis within their teams. 

They act as a bridge between the company's leadership and its employees, translating broader organizational goals into actionable, relatable tasks and behaviors. 

In fact, Gallup’s survey found that managers are responsible for 70% of the variance in employee engagement. But even though management is responsible for keeping a high employee engagement level, each employee also plays a role in fostering a positive company culture. 

For instance, how employees relate to each other and collaborate can have a huge impact on the overall morale of the team. If they quarrel a lot or fail to support each other, it can create a negative atmosphere and lower engagement levels.  

Overall, maintaining and improving employee engagement is a collective effort. It requires consistent and coordinated actions from everyone at the company, from the top leadership to individual team members. 

Employees Are Driven by Purpose

At Ideanote, we believe that the most engaged employees are the ones who understand the purpose behind the work they do. Employees who clearly see how their roles contribute to the broader mission and objectives of the company tend to be more engaged and motivated to go the extra mile. 

This sense of purpose is easy to achieve in companies that foster a culture of continuous innovation. In innovation-driven companies, employees know they aren’t just cogs in a machine. Instead, they feel a sense of belonging and community because they’re encouraged to actively participate in the company’s growth and success. 

This dynamic creates a virtuous circle: the more employees feel that their work has meaning and impact, the more engaged they become, which in turn drives further innovation and growth for the company.