All great leaders understand that employees are their company’s most valuable resource – without them, the company would not be able to operate and succeed. However despite this, many leaders do not interact and engage with their ‘valuable’ employees. This is short-sighted thinking and can cause company profits and productivity to suffer. Below I have listed three reasons why it is essential that you focus on employee engagement for your business to succeed and grow.

 

1) Increased productivity.

It is no surprise that the most productive people are the ones who are the happiest – the majority of the people that fall into this category will be people who are engaged at work. Employees who are engaged with, are more likely to feel a connection with the company and believe that the work that they are doing is important and contributes to the company’s success, therefore work harder. On the other hand, disengaged employees are likely to be unproductive and unenthusiastic at work, having a detrimental effect on the company’s profits and growth.

 

2) Improvement to the company’s reputation.

Your staff should be your biggest ambassadors for the company and therefore what they say about the company and what it’s like to work for you, is likely to have a profound effect on the company’s reputation. Staff who are happy at work will increase its reputation by speaking highly of the business and its staff. Not only will this increase the company’s reputation and attractiveness to other potential employees, but it is likely to increase the company’s customer base, too – leading to increased profit and growth.

 

3) Lower stress.

Studies have proven that there is a correlation between happiness and stress relief. Happy teams are more productive, are less stressed and stressful to their fellow colleagues. Lower stress levels in the workplace is key when creating a healthy working environment. Not only will happy, engaged employees be less stressed, but they are also likely to take fewer sick days; which can often cause disruption to workplace operations and can put additional and unnecessary burden on engaged staff members.

How do you practise employee engagement in your workplace?

 

Further Reading:

G. Tredgold (2017). ‘7 Excellent Reasons to Focus On Employee Engagement’: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295053