Employee Engagement Consultants

Sadly, employee engagement is an often overlooked area – mainly because its importance can be under-rated. But if you’re looking to build your business, now’s the time to make sure your employees are happy – after all, happy staff really do worker harder!

Don’t be mistaken by thinking reward schemes or pay rises are a quick fix solution, though. Effective employee engagement goes much deeper than money, though. It’s about ensuring employees feel genuinely valued and their career aspirations, goals and wellbeing are a priority.

Not sold? Here are just some of the headline benefits of having engaged employees:

• They’re less likely to leave you – making for a better retention rate;
• They’ll be more productive – which will help your bottom line;
• You’ll need fewer disciplinaries and grievances – saving you time;
• Sickness and absence instances will reduce – saving you money; and
• Their quality of work will improve – resulting in happier customers.

The overarching benefit? Your business will be in the best possible position to grow.

Get in touch with the team today to see how we can help transform your team.

Employee engagement definition

Employee engagement is all about fostering a healthy working environment that you can feel – good or bad.

When we asked our HR Business Partner, Jenny Ware, for her definition, she said: “Businesses with high levels of employee engagement feel lively, highly energised and positive, and this really reflects in the business results – whether it be increased profit, sales, quality or customer service.”

Why is employee engagement important?

Employee engagement is the backbone of your business. From recruitment and retention to revenue and morale, it impacts every single touch point.

We could talk all day about the importance of employee engagement so, to save you a long read, we’ve just summarised four of our favourites:

Quality output – and more of it

Employees who walk into work feeling valued and encompassed with the business naturally put in more effort. They want to be there. They want to go above and beyond. And they want your business to do well. A mixture than can only benefit your bottom line.

Whether it’s in the form of more creative ideas, better customer service or an increase in product production – and everything in between, the benefits of an engaged workforce are easy to see.

See your revenue rise

When it comes to employee engagement the main focus isn’t always money, but after all, we all have monetary goals to meet and a rise in revenue wouldn’t go a miss, we’re sure!

If you’ve a bunch of employees who’re actively putting in more discretionary effort, it can only have a positive effect on your revenue – even if the economy is working against you, it can lessen the impact.

The best of the best

Even engaged employees may leave you at some point – it’s part of a natural career progression. But they won’t leave with a sour taste. Why does this matter? Because they’ll speak highly of your business and leave positive reviews on websites like Glassdoor.

Most candidates will scout out these kind of sites when looking for jobs, so yours needs to stand out from the crowd to attract the very best talent – engaged employees will leave good reviews which help you with this.

Better retention rates

Albeit it a slight contradiction to our previous point, engaged employees tend to stick around longer. You’ll still have a natural drop off – people might retire, relocate or go for a complete career change, for example, but you’ll reduce the number of people who opt out because of your culture.

Measuring employee engagement

There’s no formula that determines whether or not your employees are engaged. But there are a few easy ways you can check the temperature across your business:

Surveys: they don’t need to be fancy and soak up lots of time, but sending a simple survey out on a regular basis (say once a quarter, for example) is an easy way to keep your finger on the pulse.

One-to-ones: make the most of routine catch-ups and ask questions that’ll give you a feel for the employee’s current mindset.

Exit interviews: not everyone utilises exit interviews – if you don’t already, we recommend you should! They can be a great forum for finding out why the employee’s left, and if it was down to cultural reasons, provides a starting point to getting to the root of the issue.

Online reviews: if you’re set-up on Glassdoor, keep on top of what ex-employees are saying about you and look out for troublesome trends.

Scoring: get your employees to score you using tools like employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). People will soon speak the truth when anonymity is on the table!

We practice what we preach

Here at Citation, we take employee engagement seriously. From team nights out and Easter egg hunts, to colleague awards and awesome Christmas parties, we’re always coming up with fresh and fun new ideas to run with.

For a full look at how we harness a healthy working environment, check out our company benefits here.

How we can help

Our team of HR experts are adept at building strong engagement strategies. Whether you’re starting from scratch or want to take your plans to the next level, we’re here to help you recruit and retain the very best talent for your business.

To find out just how much we could support you today, get in touch with the team on 0345 844 1111 or hello@citation.co.uk.