Employee Engagement: How Engaged Are Your Employees?

The Critical Link Between Wellness, Engagement, and Workforce Stability

Team member wellness – a complex assessment of both professional and personal satisfaction – is increasingly used to evaluate managerial effectiveness. However, a related, yet distinct, metric often receives less attention: employee engagement, which gauges the degree to which employees are dedicated to their company’s achievements.

Despite 71% of executives recognizing employee engagement as vital for success, only 15% of U.S. employees report feeling truly engaged in their work.

A Workforce at a Crossroads

Regardless of whether assessed through the lens of contentment or engagement, the data reveals a concerning trend: a significant portion of the U.S. workforce is in a state of crisis. Over 70% of workers express unhappiness with their current positions.

This dissatisfaction frequently manifests as active job searching or contemplation of a career change.

Root Causes of Disengagement

A primary driver of this trend is a lack of developmental opportunities within current roles. Employees are often seeking positions that offer more than just increased compensation.

They desire roles that provide a clear path for personal and professional growth, and opportunities for career advancement.

The Pandemic's Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing employee dissatisfaction. Many individuals find themselves in jobs that lack fulfillment.

A lack of guidance regarding career progression or pivoting to more meaningful work further contributes to this sentiment, hindering their ability to achieve impactful and dignified employment.

Building a Committed Workforce: An Action Plan

The following outlines a straightforward plan for evaluating employee engagement levels and implementing strategies to cultivate a dedicated and dependable workforce – essential for success in today’s competitive business environment.

This plan focuses on targeted interventions designed to foster commitment and reliability among team members.

Frequent Shortcomings in Organizational Career Progression

Our investigation into employee retention during startup development revealed several prevalent deficiencies in how organizations approach career development. These issues are likely recognizable within large corporations, including those listed in the Fortune 500, as well as rapidly expanding, high-growth companies.

The core of our research centered on the methods companies employ to synchronize their skill requirements with the talents and ambitions of their workforce. Specifically, we analyzed how they facilitate employee progression into roles valued by both the individual and the organization.

We identified critical areas of behavioral-design failure across three key domains: the strategic approach to employee engagement and growth, the processes and tools used for implementation, and the systems for establishing objectives and recognizing achievement.

To assess the strategic frameworks in place, we reviewed policies and expenditures related to upskilling and tuition reimbursement. We also considered the use of individualized assessments to determine future skill needs, and the availability of tools for career path modeling.

Furthermore, we analyzed programs designed to support early-career professionals and promote the advancement of diverse hires.

Regarding implementation processes and templates, our focus included the onboarding experience, the employee performance and development cycle, the quality of manager feedback, and the effectiveness of succession planning initiatives.

Finally, we examined how goal setting and rewards at the manager and VP levels are directly linked to their success in fostering and facilitating employee career advancement.

Employee Development Survey: Assessing Your Organization

This survey is designed to evaluate your company's commitment to employee development and overall engagement. Consider the following questions and determine how many you can confidently answer in the affirmative.

Core Development Processes

The following questions assess the foundational elements of a robust employee development program.

• Has your organization conducted a formal review of skills and talent gaps within the past 24 months?
• Was a comprehensive role taxonomy established as part of this assessment, outlining essential positions?
• Is a system in place, along with the necessary tools, to map current employees to this taxonomy, considering both internal and external candidates?

Tracking Employee Growth

Monitoring employee progress is crucial for effective development.

• Does your company systematically track employee career progression using metrics like performance evaluations, salary adjustments, and promotion rates?
• If comparing two employees hired five years ago, with one demonstrating significantly superior performance, is there a standardized process to identify suitable advancement opportunities for the high performer?

Investment in Learning

Financial commitment demonstrates a dedication to employee growth.

• Has a specific budget been allocated for each employee's career training?
• Is this budget widely communicated to both managers and employees, and are employees actively utilizing these funds?

Alignment of Rewards and Engagement

Connecting performance management to employee satisfaction is vital.

• Is your company’s reward system, including accountability for managers, VPs, and executives, directly linked to employee satisfaction regarding recognition and career development?

Monitoring Key Indicators

Data-driven insights are essential for identifying areas for improvement.

• Are employee absenteeism, productivity levels, and attrition rates consistently tracked and used to hold managers accountable?
• Is the cost of filling critical roles, along with the return on investment, compared between internal promotions and external hiring?
• Have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) been defined and implemented to measure the correlation between employee engagement, productivity, and overall performance at the executive level?

Recognizing Disengagement: Red Flags to Watch For

A lack of investment in employee development often manifests in specific, measurable consequences. Compare your organization against industry benchmarks for similar companies.

Negative Outcomes of Disengagement

Several indicators suggest a potential problem with employee engagement.

• Increased instances of employee burnout, absenteeism, and undesirable attrition rates.
• Lower scores on employee surveys related to morale and company culture (with 47% of job seekers citing poor culture as a primary reason for leaving).
• Reduced employee productivity, efficiency, and revenue generation (engaged workforces have been shown to increase revenue by a factor of four).
• Employee dissatisfaction with the level of support and investment in their career advancement and professional development.

Recent data indicates that 94% of employees would remain with their current employer if the company demonstrated a commitment to their ongoing learning and development.

Cultivating a Highly Engaged and Dedicated Workforce

Fortunately, the creation of a robust employee engagement culture is well within an organization’s capacity to control. Regardless of whether an entity is a burgeoning startup or a well-established enterprise, specific actions can be implemented to foster a workforce deeply invested in the company’s achievements.

A successful plan should begin with the following foundational elements:

Open Communication and Recognition are Paramount

Employees demonstrate significantly higher levels of engagement and connection when communication originating from leadership is both transparent and consistent. This encompasses articulating the organization’s core purpose and long-term vision, as well as guiding employees through periods of difficulty or uncertainty.

It is particularly impactful when managers proactively establish open communication channels when acknowledging employee accomplishments, utilizing both formal reward systems and spontaneous expressions of gratitude. Consider implementing cash or stock-based rewards, public acknowledgements, and personalized thank-you messages – these gestures are highly valued.

Prioritize Investment in Employee Career Paths

An employee’s ability to envision a clear path for professional growth within a company is arguably the most crucial factor influencing their dedication to the organization’s success. This is particularly true for younger professionals, with 87% of millennials identifying career development as a key determinant of job satisfaction.

Whether integrated into an existing HR infrastructure or developed during the scaling phase of a new company, career progression should be a central focus throughout the entire employee evaluation process. Key areas to consider include:

• Strategic Framework: This begins with a publicly stated commitment from the CEO to employee career development, including transparent budgeting and support for training and upskilling initiatives. Investment in career advancement tools, such as skills-mapping technology and career-planning applications, and employee recognition programs are also vital.
• Implementation and Templates: Ensure that all essential employer-employee interactions and templates incorporate relevant career-advancement and engagement content and metrics. This includes performance reviews, manager feedback surveys, organizational health assessments, succession-planning documents, and off-boarding procedures.
• Goal Setting and Rewards: Establish and disseminate clear metrics and KPIs for evaluating and rewarding leadership, VPs, and managers based on their effectiveness in supporting employee development and engagement. Organizations must measure and reward desired behaviors to achieve them.

Transitioning from Manager to Coach

Throughout my career in management and organizational leadership, a common misstep – one I have personally encountered – is a managerial focus on immediate job performance, often overshadowing and neglecting long-term career development.

The most impactful relationship within a workplace – and the one most directly influencing employee engagement – is the dynamic between manager and employee. Therefore, a shift towards an employee-centric approach is essential for any strategy aimed at fostering employee development and engagement.

The transformation of Microsoft under Satya Nadella provides a valuable example, with his leadership widely credited for shifting the company’s culture from product-focused to people-focused, largely by cultivating a “growth mindset” among employees. This mindset must be genuinely embraced, confidently conveyed, and skillfully implemented by every manager within the organization to support employees in reaching their full potential.

Preparing managers at early and mid-levels for this transition requires explicit support from leadership, affirming that employee career advancement is a core component of their role. Investing in your most valuable asset – your employees – is not only essential for fostering purpose and commitment but also the most effective way to address organizational skills gaps.

Do not delay addressing employee engagement until valuable talent departs. Prioritizing engagement is a mutually beneficial strategy for employers seeking to unlock the full potential of their human resources. The time to establish the groundwork for an engaged and dedicated workforce is now, by providing your people with the ambition, skills, and capabilities needed to thrive in the evolving marketplace.