by David Pinto
Employee engagement and experience
Employee engagement is the extent to which employees are committed to and enthusiastic about their work, have job satisfaction, and are motivated to put forth their best efforts on behalf of the organization.
It is a summary measure of how well an organization is developing and maintaining its employees' efforts and skills through training, and how well it is aware of and meets key needs. Employee engagement and great employee experience is both a predictor of future business performance and an outcome of organizational culture.
In order to better understand employee engagement, it's important to understand what it isn't: employee satisfaction, employee morale, or job satisfaction.
Employee Satisfaction:
Employee satisfaction focuses on whether employees feel happy with the organization as a whole or with specific aspects of their jobs (e.g., pay). It doesn't tell us anything about the extent to which they're committed to or motivated by their work. However, it is indicative of a positive culture.
Employee Morale:
Employee morale focuses on whether they feel good about things like their leadership, benefits, work environment, etc., but again doesn't tell us anything about motivation or commitment. Implementing an employee listening strategy will help to improve employee morale.
Job Satisfaction:
Job satisfaction measures how much people like their jobs in general — how much value employees feel they get from them — rather than how engaged they are in their work or what drives them toward achieving goals for the organization (or even themselves).
Employee engagement and experience and company culture
Company culture is reflected in its:
Values
The values are the principles that guide how workers act in the workplace, which can include non-monetary compensation such as flexible work hours or telecommuting. An organization’s values also reflect its commitment to ethical behavior and diversity, as well as identify areas within the workplace of importance that will help encourage success and positive workplace culture.
Norms
Norms are informal rules that govern how people behave at work. Norms can range from simple things like office attire to complex ways of acting or speaking in meetings or emails.
Customs
Customs are customary ways of doing things at the organization and may not be codified anywhere but are understood by everyone who works there.
For example
if you’ve worked at your company for more than a year, you know you don’t wear jeans on Fridays because it’s “casual Friday” and everyone wears casual clothes instead of business clothes on Fridays (custom).
Improving employee experience using successful employee listening strategy
An important aspect of improving engagement and employee experience is real-time feedback from employees to HR teams.
This enables fresh ideas and actionable insights into employees' perceptions of the workplace culture, improving employee experience, and this is critical in creating success within organizations and meeting business goals.
This strategic approach ensures employee well being and allows business leaders to focus decision making on what is best for employee engagement and employee experience.
Managers should create an employee experience and employee engagement survey in order to help conduct performance reviews of the workforce.
This should help improve employee experience and hence employee engagement, which in turn should encourage employees to work towards successful business outcomes.
