Behind every productive, efficient, and profitable organization are engaged employees. From seasoned leaders to new hires, people who are engaged with their work produce better results and stay around longer as well (aka reduction of turnover). Since people are an organization's greatest asset, understanding the importance of employee engagement is paramount.

If you want help implementing or understanding employee engagement strategies, Socius Strategies provides expert consulting services for inclusive leadership coaching. It cannot be stressed enough: facilitating a sense of belonging amongst your team members is the first step in truly engaging them with your organization.

How is Employee Engagement Different From Job Satisfaction?

Often associated with job satisfaction, employee engagement is actually a little different. The difference between the two lies in motivation.

For example, job satisfaction is more closely related to external motivators employees have for doing their jobs. Salary, healthcare benefits, vacation policies, communication frequency and styles, and even employee recognition all play into job satisfaction. When an employee has a high sense of job satisfaction, they likely feel content with their job and the benefits the organization provides them.

However, if an employee is satisfied and content, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re engaged. Though, job satisfaction is the first step in fostering engagement.

Employee engagement is more closely related to the level of intrinsic motivation an employee has in their role rather than extrinsic. When an employee feels engaged with their work, they feel that they have a place (and stake) in the company’s future. They feel like they really belong where they are, and feel valued for their skills and perspective.

As you can imagine, engaged employees are often more proactive in their work, more innovative in their ideas, and can place your organization on a trajectory for long-term success.

So, while job satisfaction is still necessary for your organization, engaged employees (rather than content employees) can exponentially improve your business and its work.

How Do You Know if Your Employees are Engaged?

For some organizations, determining if employees are engaged might be obvious. High turnover rates and dissatisfied clients and customers are clear signals of lack of engagement. On the other hand, if you have high employee engagement, you will see

• increased discretionary effort (or how much of an employee’s effort they could give if they wanted to above and beyond the minimum required),
• higher productivity and lower employee turnover, and
• high level of customer satisfaction

All of which can lead to loyalty, profitability, and shareholder value for the organization.

So, learning how to recognize employee engagement levels can help your organization be proactive in how they manage people. It’s much easier to enhance and maintain employee engagement when you know if your employees are actually engaged.

A great way to find out if they are engaged is to ask…

Why do they stay with your company? (aka Stay Interviews)

This question isn’t just great for interviews; it’s a good question to ask your current employees. These interviews can give great insights into what employees believe is going well and what they enjoy about working at your organization. Furthermore, it can be a good idea to try and determine if their motivations changed over time.

Leaders and managers need to have effective one-on-ones with team members to get honest answers; practicing active listening and empathy will allow employees to feel their opinions and thoughts are valued enough to share.

Understanding why people stay is the first step in understanding the reason employees are engaged (or not).

Reach out to Socius Strategies to

• Learn how to have an effective stay interview
• Understand the questions to ask during the interview
• Interpret the results from your conversations
• Plan for your next steps