Employee Engagement: Just another fad or your ticket to HR victory?

There are over 2,000 employee engagement services in the market today – so if you think employee engagement is a fad you should reconsider. Pick up any human resource publication or search for hundreds of blogs to find articles on this topic. Employee engagement is here to stay. With the right planning, you can build up your organization and your career.

While I wonder about the need for so many different solution providers, I’m sure they each do things a bit differently from one another. It does appear that engagement strategies will become as commonly offered as health benefits.

Currently we’re living in an employee-driven market, with a shortage of talent in certain areas. For example, there are 1.4 openings for every job searcher. Thus, companies are becoming creative in how they’re attracting and retaining talent. Successful engagement tactics are more than employee surveys, pool tables and in-house bars.

True engagement is plugging into the employees’ authentic desires, translating those desires into business practices and measuring the success through retention, productivity and efficiency.

The first question HR professionals often hear when they present an action plan is “how much is this going to cost me?” Certain initiatives may have an upfront cost associated, but there are other options that cost the employer virtually nothing. While the opposite, an unengaged workforce, can lead to a loss of revenue through a lack of productivity, inefficiency and high turnover.

It’s essential for human resource professionals to spearhead their organization’s employee engagement initiatives. Prove to the management team the cost savings, improved employer branding and productivity that is to be had by an engaged workforce.

Creating an engaged workforce is a significant feat, especially if you have proof and case stories for how it has benefited employees in your organization.

Remember that employee engagement is important for all companies, but that not all initiatives should be used in every circumstance. It’s important that you are not only analytical about the initiatives you implement, but also highly strategic. This has the potential to reach all levels of the organization.

Have you successfully implemented or significantly improved your company’s employee engagement? If so, we’d love to hear how you did so and how it improved your company.