Businesses in every industry and at every size are talking about employee engagement, perhaps ad nauseam. Sometimes terms like “employee engagement” can start to lose its potency as we keep talking about it, but never find anything that makes a difference. But, employee engagement is one of the best ways to improve your day to day and reach your long-term business goals.
Employee engagement is not the same as satisfaction or happiness, although an engaged employee may also be happy and satisfied at work. Employee engagement is the commitment an employee has to the organization and its goals – it’s “buy in.” An engaged employee is the sort of employee that shares the same vision as the company.
When you start to think about employee engagement in that way, it’s easy to understand how it might be confused with happiness or satisfaction. But, when things aren’t going well for the company, an engaged employee feels dissatisfied or discontent. Conversely, a disengaged employee could be very happy with the job and still not on the same page as the rest of the company, ultimately not meeting goals or staying productive.
Engagement matters. Gallup recently released a report that measured exactly how much employee engagement matters, stating that an engaged employee experiences:
- 20% higher productivity
- 21% higher profitability
- 37% lower absenteeism
- 25% lower turnover (in high-turnover organizations)/65% lower turnover (in low-turnover organizations)
- 48% fewer safety incidents
- 41% fewer patient safety incidents
- 41% fewer quality incidents (defects)
- 10% higher customer metrics
Any business would love to experience success in engaging their employees, but sometimes getting there can be tough. One of the most effective methods for engaging employees is through consistent and thorough communication. Giving your employees at all levels the same current, relevant information in a way that’s easy to digest and does not distract from their job function is one of the best ways to engage your employees every single day.
Imagine your company’s executive team has outlined a new strategic initiative to improve your product line. You’ve included it in your strategic planning, you’ve got your dashboard, and you’re ready to launch. But, if you leave it only to the individuals on the executive team to communicate that goal to the people whose jobs ultimately impact the success or failure of that goal, then you’re limiting yourself to individual communication styles and relationship dynamics that may or may not be productive or successful.
What if, instead, your employees were able to engage with that goal with an understanding of why it was important, and a daily dashboard helping them to visually see the importance and the progress? If that sounds like a lot of work, it could be… or you could utilize strategically placed digital signage to ensure that every employee was getting the same information every single day.
That’s where Retriever Digital Signage comes in. We’d love to customize our system around your business goals and engage your employees more significantly than ever before. Click here and we’ll brainstorm some great ways to communicate effectively to engage your team (without adding more things to your schedule).