The importance of investing in employee engagement

Businesses should look to harness the power from better engagement with their employees; as positive employee engagement can have a positive impact on organisations. Benefits such as improved cross-department communication, better morale and greater levels of innovation, productivity and profitability can help justify the investment.

Here are some of the key areas you can expect to see a positive impact if you were to invest in employee engagement.

Improved productivity

Engage with your employees by clearly communicating your company’s vision and objectives will help to improve productivity because your team will understand what direction the company is heading in. By clarifying and breaking it down further to each department and employee the role they play in the company’s growth, will help encourage individuals to play an active part in achieving the company's goals. 

Retention

Engaged employees who feel valued are more likely to stay. Listen to staff feedback and suggestions will help increase the level of retention because staff will be more likely to feel respected and valued by the company. Retention is less costly than the time it takes to recruit, hire, train and develop a new employee is far higher than the cost of continuously engaging current employees and providing them with continual training and opportunities - especially when they are already productive and understand the business processes. 

Improved collaboration

The more engaged, the more likely staff members will interact with colleagues in other departments, sharing information which will help to improve collaboration across the business, the right business system will help this also. Sharing knowledge, experiences and best practice will increase cross-department collaboration, innovation, better communication and improved productivity.

Improved customer relations

Companies who have over 50% of their employees engaged are 80% more likely to retain their customers. That is because there is a strong correlation between the happiness of employees and the quality of the customer service given. The stability satisfied customers could bring to your business is another reason why employee engagement is so important. Depending on the industry attracting new customers can cost up to 30 times more than retaining a customer. 

Job satisfaction and commitment

Although job satisfaction is different to employee engagement, employees who feel fulfilled in their roles will have a greater sense of job satisfaction and are more likely to display commitment, loyalty and flexibility. Those who display an emotional commitment to their jobs are more likely to go that extra mile, be more innovative and passionate while non-engaged staff may watch the clock or worst-case scenario do the bare minimum.

Profitability

All the reasons above ultimately lead to one highly important benefit that no company can overlook. By improving the productivity of your team, improving knowledge sharing and collaboration throughout the business and retaining both employees and customers, you stand to improve the profitability of your business.

By engaging your employees, you’ll be helping your business achieve its objectives by retaining staff who are committed to supporting the business as they develop their own careers - the results of which will lead to greater satisfaction among your team and improved profitability overall.