These days, employee engagement is a huge part of any successful organisation. There is direct correlation between customer satisfaction and employee engagement, companies used to focus solely on the customer and their needs, but have now realised that if your employee’s aren’t engaged, then your customers won’t be engaged. Tackle the problem at the root. To understand what we mean by employee engagement, check out our blog What is employee engagement?
Business leaders are becoming increasingly aware that an engaged workforce can increase productivity and the quality of customer service, raise performance helping to nurture loyal customers. I believe that there are 6 main benefits to having engaged employees:
Higher retention rate
The ability to retain employees is very important – nobody enjoys losing talented employees they have invested in and developed. Employee retention reduces HR costs, promotes company growth from within and improves customer service. If employees are challenged, enjoy their work and feel valued they are more likely to stay with a company. Engaged employees don’t have a reason to look elsewhere for work.
Increased Productivity
If your employees are engaged at work, they are more likely to work harder, be more flexible with their working hours, take less time off sick, have better mental health and create close working relationships – these all increase productivity massively! If everyone in your business is working hard toward similar goals, productivity will inevitably rise. Research shows that engaged employees are 17% more productive than their peers.
Employee Satisfaction
Although people often confuse employee satisfaction and employee engagement, they are two very different things. Employee satisfaction looks at how much employees enjoy being at work. An employee can arrive at work and have an enjoyable time without being effective in their role – they are satisfied but they are not engaged with their work and aligned with or aware of the business goals. An engaged employee however will aim to be effective in their role and strive to achieve not only their own objectives but those of the companies.
Employee satisfaction and employee engagement should go hand in hand – create a comfortable working environment and give clear objectives that your employees feel valued for achieving.
Increased Profitability
Employee engagement influences profitability. This is largely an indirect effect created through the other benefits of employee engagement. With increasing employee retention, customer loyalty, productivity, and safety – all benefits of employee engagement – profitability is increased. Engaged staff generally work harder, stay with the organisation and inspire customer loyalty, ultimately increasing revenues and reducing costs which effects the bottom line.
Greater Innovation
For an organisation to remain successful they must be innovative. There is a cyclical effect between innovation and engagement. The opportunity for employees to be innovative within their roles impacts feelings of satisfaction and engagement.
Employees that are engaged perform at a higher level and are more passionate about their role, they also have a greater sense of ownership within their organisations further encouraging out of the box thinking and the desire to use innovative methods and challenge the status quo.
Great Customer Service
The service an employee delivers to a customer is linked to how engaged they are with their organisation. Engaged employees will generally provide better a customer experience, their positivity about their organisation will be reflected in the way they operate their tasks and the general positive attitude they will emanate to customers.
Engaged employees care more about their jobs and the customers they serve. Seven out of ten consumers will spend 13% more money with a company that provides excellent customer experience.
If you’d like more information, get in touch with us at anythingspossible@drpgroup.com to see what solutions we have up our sleeves to help you boost your employee engagement levels.