Why Should CEOs Embrace Employee Engagement?

 As the leader of a successful company, it is understandable that profitability and competitiveness are the focus and driving forces behind everyday activities. Sadly, for many busy CEO’s, employee engagement is low on their priority list and something “HR looks after” anyway. However, in today’s business world, where skilled talent has the upper hand, CEO’s need to be more mindful of the engagement levels of their employees than ever before. A Harvard Business Review study indicated that as many as “71% of corporate executives rank employee engagement as very important to achieving overall organizational success.” There is a direct correlation between how engaged employees are and they’re willingness to actively work towards the objectives of their employers. Having an insight into what’s driving this engagement can be a clear indicator of performance that impacts your company’s profits and progress.

Why would any CEO embrace employee engagement?

There are a number of key reasons why any leader should take steps to enhance and monitor employee engagement levels. These are defined business reasons, and not merely conjecture. Benefits of employee engagement include:

• Keeping the business profitable - when employees are connected to the goals of the company, they are also helping to spur the business towards greater profits. Workplace Research Foundation advised that increasing employee engagement by just 10% boosts profits per employee by as much as $2,400 annually.

• Improving and identifying new customer offerings - engaged employees are more apt to share their ideas that can increase innovation. After all, it is employees and managers who are ‘out in the field’ talking to customers, prospects and partners, enabling them to gather useful and beneficial information that can be fed back into their own company.

• Avoiding unnecessary personnel costs - one of the biggest costs to a company is recruitment, particularly where high turnover exists. Engaged employees are less likely to jump ship and therefore continue to produce income.

• Leading the corporate culture – CEO’s who want to lead the culture from the top are more able to connect with employees, engaging with them and tapping into their contributions on a regular basis. This is the true meaning of leadership.

• Attracting the best employees – as the company expands, recruiting additional great people is made easier in a highly engaged workplace. Direct referrals and other low cost recruitment methods happen naturally. Great reviews on Glassdoor and other such sites counts for a lot when it comes to recruitment.

Impacting the bottom line with employee engagement monitoring

No company should simply assume that it’s doing a great job of engagement. Instead, it needs tools to accurately monitor employee engagement in real time to impact the bottom line. What happens when there is poor engagement?

• Spiraling costs of hiring, firing, and retraining - one of the sure signs of poor employee engagement is a high cost of turnover from repeated employee terminations, hiring, firing, and retraining. This churn can wreak havoc on any company and reduces its ability to thrive.

• Loss of internal expertise to competing firms – employees who leave take with them all that knowledge that otherwise could have been harnessed. Where do they take it? To your competition.

• Actionable feedback from the workforce – if employees are not included in discussions, provided with feedback tools or listened to, it’s impossible to tap into their expertise, knowledge or suggestions to improve the business.

• Avoiding legal costs from unnecessary lawsuits – employees who are ignored do not feel part of the company and can become disgruntled and a cascading disruptive force to others. This can quickly lead to more serious problems, including employment disputes, lawsuits, union involvement, and even violence.

Why is it important for CEO’s to become interested in employee engagement?

As a leader, you may well be undertaking some engagement measures listed above, but wish increase employee engagement levels and get a better insight across your own company. This shouldn’t be limited to a cursory interest derived from the once-a-year survey. This focus should be a living, breathing daily part of running a successful business. This can only work well when the benefits of employee engagement are tangible and can be proven.

Employee engagement doesn’t have to be complex

There is a false perception that because employees are complicated creatures that so too is employee engagement. Or that there is some kind of secret formula that makes one company better at engaging employees than others. With the aid of modern software, greater insight and real-time action can be taken daily to improve the employee engagement levels of any company. Visually appealing and actionable reports can help to understand the forces behind engagement and productivity. It becomes that much clearer as the company moves towards more growth, better client relationships, and greater profits.

Using employee engagement tools to take action

One simple way to take action that will reap positive results is to gather feedback from employees about a specific part of their daily work, or maybe a new perk, and then make changes based on the employee feedback. For example, a simple health and wellness program could be run once a week, resulting in better health, fewer absences and improved teamwork. Another possible use could be during performance reviews. Employees can provide confidential insight about how well the company is doing in terms of professional development opportunities that can guide the HR team to focus on specific training improvements. The possibilities are endless when tapping into the wealth of knowledge that real-time employee engagement reporting provides.

CEO's and Managers alike can vastly improve employee engagement with real time surveys and feedback solutions from Thymometrics; email info@thymometrics.com, call +1 646 760 9323 (US) or +44 (0) 1223 750 251 (Europe) or visit thymometrics.com.