The people you have in your organization, or in other words, your employees, are the most important members of your establishment. Little wonder then that it is often said that “people are your greatest assets”. An employer and management team that understands this basic yet powerful concept is on track in ensuring a successful team at work and building employee engagement.

That brings us to the meat of the article, which is, “What is Employee Engagement?’

What is Employee Engagement?

Simply put, employee engagement is a measure of how committed and motivated your employees are toward carrying out their responsibilities and meeting the organization’s goals and objectives. In other words, are your employees passionate about their jobs, and are they also actively involve and invest in carrying them out?

While this is quite similar to job satisfaction, they are quite different.

Difference Between Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction

Whereas job satisfaction is measured from the contentment of an employee with his/her job, which might be a result of many factors, such as income earnings, employee engagement is more about how the staff feels about the job.

An employee might be satisfied with his/her job because it gives them time, suits their plan, and pays them well. However, are they motivated and passionate about what they do? If the answer is no, but they only come to work and leave because it is convenient for them, then they might not be engaged.

Engaged employee gives his/her best towards the growth of the organization they work for, and is motivated, not just by what they earn, but because they love what they do, and are committed to seeing the business thrive. Hence, it is worthy of note that driving employee engagement is not just a factor of spending plenty of money on employees.

Importance of Employee Engagement - Why Build Engagement?

Building employee engagement in the workplace is important for a variety of reasons. Therefore, if you as a business owner haven’t been paying attention to employee engagement, then perhaps one or more of these reasons would convince you of the importance.

1. It Leads to Employee Satisfaction: While we have rightly stated that satisfaction and engagement cannot be used interchangeably, it might interest you to know that they are actually related. An engaged workforce is a satisfied one. The easiest and most realistic way to ensure you satisfy your employees is to engage them. When people are passionate about what they do and do what they love, they are generally happier, and more satisfied.

2. It Makes Them More Productive: Another very important benefit of employee engagement is that it drives productivity. What that means is that when you have employees that are adequately motivated and passionate, they work better, and produce better. You do not need to look for external motivations for them, as their personal contentment and passion already do the job for you.

3. Your Rate of Employee Turnover Reduces: One of the main reasons why people leave their jobs is because they do not feel engaged in it. It is almost cliche that when you offer employees a lot of money, it is a guarantee that they will stay with you. However, this has been proven to be false over and over again. It is important to keep your employees engaged, should you aim to continue to use and enjoy their services.

4. It Helps Increase Attendance Rate: What is the current rate of attendance in your workplace? Do you find that your employees are habitually absent from work and always give flimsy excuses for this? The underlying problem, especially when they are obviously making up reasons for their absence, might be a lack of motivation and engagement. People naturally are eager and willing to show up in places they love to be, and where they feel that their energies would be appreciated and best utilized.

5. It Helps Retain Your Customers: Whichever you look at it, how motivated your employees are would also have a replica effect on your customers. In other words, when you have an engaged team of employees, they give their best, especially when attending to your customers, and hence you have a higher chance of customer retention. On the other hand, when your employees are not motivated or committed at work, it shows in the way they deal with your customers and might lead to a loss of customers. Hence, it is important to build employee motivation at work.

Conclusion on Employee Engagement

As a business owner, you can focus on how to increase customers and make more money, which is very good, however, if you neglect to engage your employees, your other efforts would be futile. They are your greatest assets, and as such, you need to keep them motivated and engaged.

There are different ways to drive employee engagement, and regular efficient communications are one of them. About 20,000+ businesses currently use the SmartSMS portal to drive business communications with their employees. This they do with the SMS feature, and Airtime & Data vending, amongst others. Why not join them? Registration is free, and you also get a free bonus when you sign up. Begin your journey into enhancing business communications in the best way in engaging and motivating your employees.

Kindly reach out to us if you need help setting up your free SMS account.