Did you know, that only 13% of employees working for an organisation around the world are engaged with the work that they’re doing?
Organisations everywhere should be concerned by this, as not engaging employees is one of the most common mistakes made in project management.
In fairness, some are actively taking the lead on in it. Companies such as Facebook, Google and Simply Business have their own innovative employee engagement ideas to inspire their workforce.
But why is engaging your employees so important? In this blog post we’re going to look at some of the main employee engagement benefits to an organisation.
Increased productivity
This should come as no surprise. When you’re demotivated in your role what chance is there of you being productive? Not much.
The statistics back this up. Research has shown that happy employees are 12% more productive when they’re happy at work.
It doesn’t have to be difficult to achieve. Even by simply empowering your staff rather than controlling their every move should give them the belief that they’re valued as part of your team.
Positive impact on innovation
Everyone wants a workforce that is bursting with ideas and more importantly, are willing to share them.
By encouraging them to openly discuss their suggestions with other people, they will naturally feel more engaged with your project. Especially if their ideas are taken on board, or at the very least, they feel like they have been taken into consideration.
The end results? Not only more ideas are produced but the quality of the suggestions should also be better.
Better retention of employees
With such a competitive jobs market, it has never been harder to retain your best employees.
Currently, only 13% of employees say they love their job and are not looking for other opportunities according to Talent Inc. This leaves you with an uphill task to keep your team happy and motivated in their roles.
But all is not lost. Unsurprisingly by engaging with your team members, they are more likely to stay.
This is shown in one report, which found that employees who are ‘engaged and thriving’ are 59% less likely to look for a job with a different organization in the next 12 months.
Less absenteeism
Staff absence causes a number of issues for employers. One of the biggest is the impact on revenue, with 75% of survey respondents claiming that employee absences have a moderate to large impact on productivity and revenue.
One of the key reasons for these absences is a lack of engagement with the job they’re doing.
Improving this should be a priority, with the employer and employee advice service ACAS claiming that staff are less likely to take sickness absence or quit when they’re engaged with their work.
Closer collaboration
With 75% of employers rating team work and collaboration as “very important,” it is now essential that your team members are fully engaged with their work.
Why? Because this is one of the main reasons that collaborations within and outside of organisations fail.
A solution that has helped local councils such as Havant Borough Council and major public sector organisations such as the MOD avoid this is online collaboration software.
Having one single secure platform to share ideas and work on documents together can help to create a sense of comradery amongst your team members.
Also, because of the private nature of an online workspace, they will also feel more confident voicing their opinions without the risk of an email being leaked or a conversation being overheard.
More revenue
The be all and end all for all organisations is how much revenue they make.
The statistics prove, that there is a link between an engaged workforce and the amount of revenue an organisation makes. A study by AON has found that companies with high engagement levels reported 23% better revenue than their counterparts.
The reasons for this vary. One key reason is that the as productivity goes up, this generally leads to lower operating costs and therefore an overall increase in profit margins.
