Employee Engagement and its benefits to Business…
It is a fact – employees desperately want to feel engaged. 90% of people would take lower compensation if they were to be doing more meaningful work. If people get engaged, they simply perform better and stay in jobs longer.
This translates to business success. According to Gallup the top performing engagement firms increased profitability (by 23%), increased productivity (by 18%), decreased absenteeism (by 81%), and increased client engagement (by 10%) – versus the bottom performing engagement companies.
But little more than a third of people feel engaged at work at present.
So, how to engage your people? Various studies have indicated that service to others is at the very heart of creating meaning and purpose in an individual’s life. When we serve others, we feel more fulfilled, happy, motivated, and engaged.
We have innumerable opportunities to serve. But it’s often challenging for us to see those opportunities and for companies to emphasise them. The opportunity is to see the work as a service and to help our colleagues and employees do the same. This change in mindset can be transformational. There are various groups any of us can consider serving each day.
Clients or Customers
At the core of every business is a customer. If that business doesn’t serve that customer well, it will fail. Yet many of us feel distant from that customer in our day-to-day jobs. The accountant in a medical device company may not ever meet the people those devices are saving, the procurement specialist at a theme park may not get to see the joy their rides create.
Finding ways to make this service to customers real to employees is a core challenge for each person and for every company’s leadership team. Varying employee tasks helps and send them visual evidence (for example a video) about the impact their work has on clients. Regardless of approach, finding ways to see through an activity to the impact it has on the customer is critical to a mindset of service.
Colleagues
Nothing is more important to happiness and fulfilment in life than the depth and breadth of our positive relationships. And positive relationships at work are both sorely lacking in many environments and absolutely essential to engagement where they exist.
What could it look like if every person in a company decided to serve their people in the same way they serve customers/ clients? This may include managers learning how to better express gratitude to and to recognise great employees. But the core of this mindset shift must be in every individual in a firm choosing to act in service to others each day. The results could be a relational revolution. And all it requires is a change of heart from one of self-centeredness or competition to one of encouragement and support.
Community
Every organisation exists in a community — a city, town, neighbourhood, country, or state. Companies that implement community service programs experience a number of benefits, including better recruitment, development, engagement, and retention. When structured to reflect the interests and passions of employees, these programmes can lead to greater motivation among a workforce and better reputation in the community. What could your business do in your community now?
Financial Gain
This one is the hardest. For most people in a business, that business’s shareholders are some distant, often unknown force. And many private companies are structured similarly. While it’s likely never going to be as big a motivator as customers or colleagues, remembering that our work may serve the financial dreams and aspirations of people like us can make us feel better about the value we create.
Partners and Vendors
Anyone who’s been a vendor or provider to another company knows that role can be hard. Often, those we serve as customers/ clients take advantage of us, neglect us, and take out their frustrations on us. We have an opportunity, therefore, when we are the clients dealing with the vendors and partners who serve us, to act differently — and even to embrace an attitude of service to them. People or companies who become known for serving even their providers will benefit from more pleasant relationships with those partners and truly differentiated reputations in the marketplace. When we act to serve our providers, we can also feel better about our relationships with them.
People We Love
We all work for a reason. Many of us work to support a family and to provide opportunities for them. Those without spouses or kids often work to support parents, siblings, or friends. Many people use the proceeds of their work to support causes and organisations about which they care deeply. Even on the hard days, we can take comfort in the fact that our work is an act of service to those we love.
For service to be central to work, it has to permeate everything that we do. It must become a mindset with which we approach all our professional activities. Individuals who remember these daily opportunities for service will be happier and more fulfilled. And companies that promote them and keep them central to their culture will benefit from a more engaged and motivated workforce.
Need some help in engaging your team in the right way? Get in touch with us at ignite@tinderboxbusinessdevelopment.co.uk or call us on 0116 232 5231.
Why not have a look at our online learning platform provided by our sister company where you can find useful business tools, courses, articles, access to Experts and more?
Click here to access The Box Academy and see for yourself, you can join for free and if you like what you see, join as a full member giving your people access to a huge amount of learning and development material.
The Tinderbox Team
