How Employee Engagement Can Make or Break Your Business
Let’s be honest, the success of any business is directly correlated to the overall engagement of your employees. Employee engagement keeps your employees happy, promotes collaboration and teamwork and most importantly, it increases your bottom line.
Companies that have the highest rates of employee engagement are 21% more profitable than their peers. Yet, only 29% of all United States and Canadian employees are engaged at work. So, how can this problem be fixed, and what can you do as a business owner to keep your employees happy? Let’s discuss both the pitfalls of unengaged employees and the benefits of engaged employees and how they affect your business.
What is Employee Engagement?
To know how employee engagement affects your business, you first need to understand what it is. When it comes down to it, employee engagement is the overall feeling of happiness, satisfaction, and motivation of your employees. In better terms, it’s how much effort your employees are willing to put into their job and their willingness to deliver your business the highest quality product possible. Employee engagement is essential to developing an ever-increasing bottom line.
Unengaged and Unhappy Employees
As we said, unhappy and disengaged employees can be a fatal blow to your business. They cost you hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, they bring down the atmosphere and culture of the workplace, and they increase employee turnover rate by almost 50%. But what more can we say about disengaged employees and how they affect your business? Let’s dive in.
It’s estimated that 85% of employees aren’t engaged at work. In a study conducted by Gallup, employees stated negative feelings about their engagement and detailed that they were doing the bare minimum every workday. On average, one single disengaged employee costs companies $3,400 for every $10,000 they make each year. So, if you have a disengaged employee making $100,000 per year, that’s $34,000! For example, let's take a small business that has only 100 employees, with an average salary of $50,000. This business would be losing $1,700,000 PER YEAR due to disengagement! Not to mention, disengaged employees are 60% more likely to commit errors at work.
It’s clear that disengaged employees are a massive threat to the well-being of your business, and that your company should always be striving to create a high-quality, engaging workplace atmosphere.
Engaged and Happy Employees
The correlation between engaged employees and increased revenue is not just some speculative claim. Employees who are engaged and happy at the workplace are 22% more productive than their counterparts, and as stated above, are 21% more profitable as well. However, finding a highly engaged workplace seems to be few and far between these days, with all statistics pointing to the majority of employees being unhappy or disengaged one way or another.
The Employee Turnover Problem
While disengaged employees have proven to be a threat to your livelihood, employee turnover within your business can prove to be just as harmful. In 2017 the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that the annual turnover rate in the U.S. was 26.3%. Even more interestingly. the cost of replacing just one single employee can range anywhere from 50% to 200% of the (former) employee's annual salary. Let’s take that same business we talked about above and apply the turnover formula. That business would have anywhere from $660,000 to $2,600,000 in turnover and replacement costs EACH YEAR.
So, instead of saying “good riddance” to your disengaged & unhappy employees, simply implement a few of the strategies detailed below.
How to Keep Employees Engaged
At the end of the day, we’ve found that the biggest factor in employee engagement is opportunity, career advancement, recognition, appreciation, and feedback.
Offer Opportunities
One of the simplest ways to boost your employee engagement is to offer opportunities. More specifically, volunteer opportunities. Volunteering is one of the most sure-fire ways to keep your employee’s engaged because it gives them a bigger sense of self, makes them feel like they’re making a valuable contribution to the world their living in, and promotes a collaborative environment. It not only provides team-building opportunities to boost morale and loyalty to the company and culture, it also provides individuals with opportunities for skill-development outside of their organization. Companies like Swoovy are trying to help establish volunteering within organizations to ultimately increase employee engagement, reduce employee turnover, and contribute to corporate social responsibility.
Career Advancement
The largest factor that comes into play when discussing employee engagement is career advancement. Shockingly, 87% of millennials rated career growth as an important aspect of the job. Outlining a plan on how your employees can climb the corporate ladder gives them the incentive to perform well and to be engaged. Nobody wants to feel like they’ll be an employee or an entry-level marketer forever. When it comes down to it, the younger generation of workers is driven by their possible future success. That’s what gets them up in the morning. However, you need to make it clear that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Their journey to the top may be long, but it’s a possibility if they remain engaged.
Recognition
Nobody wants to be left in the shadows of someone else. Nor does anyone want to feel like they’re just a replaceable cog in the large machine that is your business. It’s imperative to make your employees feel recognized. This ties along with our next solution of appreciation, but makes it known that your employees are seen and valued. Compliment your manager on their leadership skills that day, or tell the intern they did a great job on the quarterly report. Whatever it may be, do something that shows your employees that they’re seen and that their efforts don’t go unnoticed.
Appreciation
Who doesn’t want to be appreciated? Whether it comes from your family, relationship, or work, everyone likes to be appreciated. That’s just human nature. Showing some love to your employees goes a long way when it comes to employee engagement. Humans are wired to do things in pursuit of acceptance and appreciation. The more you reward your employees with compliments, gratitude, and appreciation, the more likely it is that this employee will work harder and deliver a better product.
Feedback
While everyone loves a little appreciation now and then, you must give your employees feedback and constructive criticism. While this may seem counterintuitive, feedback gives your employees a sense of worth and makes it known that you, or your managers, are paying attention to the effort that they’re putting into their work. No, this doesn’t mean micromanaging them or giving feedback on every little thing they’re doing, but just showing a little care now and again. Doing so will make them feel like they’re worthy of your time and are a valuable contribution to the business.