The document discusses the importance of employee engagement for businesses. It defines employee engagement as employees who are willing to work hard and go the extra mile to help the company succeed. The document presents research finding that engaged employees are more productive, less likely to leave, and can improve customer loyalty and financial performance. It provides tips for achieving engagement such as starting with management buy-in, clear communication, training, recognition, and using various communication tactics like meetings, email and social media. The key message is that employee engagement has a direct link to business success, especially in difficult economic times.

1. The power of employee
engagement

2. We’ll look at:
• What is employee engagement?
• Why bother?
• The facts don’t lie
• Engagement and the recession
• How do you engage your staff?

3. What is employee engagement?
• To attract and hold fast
• To become involved; inform, persuade
• To help shape outcomes
• The act or state of interlocking
• Modern, two-way internal communication
• “An employee who is engaged in the workplace is someone
willing to go that extra mile, put in more hours, work harder
and do what it takes to make the company a success.
Someone who has the organisation’s best interests central to
what they do” – Pete Bradon, Head of Research, Sunday
Times “Best Companies to Work For” list

4. Why bother with employee
engagement?
Engagement Motivation Performance Productivity Profitability

5. The facts don’t lie…
Firms with the highest percentage
of engaged employees had a 3.74%
higher operating margin and 2.06%
higher net profit margin than
average (Towers Perrin – in a survey
of 2,000,000 responses)
Engaged employees
are up to 43% more
productive
(HayGroup)
Engaged employees are
87% less likely to leave
the organization (Towers
Perrin)

6. Continued…
Engaged employees can
improve customer
loyalty up to 56%
higher (CiB)
The financial performance
of organisations with fully
engaged employees is
typically four times better
than those with poor
employee attitudes.
(Watson Wyatt)
Those engaged generate
23% more revenue than
non-engaged
counterparts (Hay Group)

7. What businesses think…
“Many people are unmotivated, not because they have
a great reason to be, but rather because they have not
been given a great reason to be motivated & engaged.”
“Regarding engagement, yes we need to pay people
more – pay them more attention! It’s just not about the
money.”

8. Engagement and the recession
• Survivor’s guilt
• More work, less motivation
• Rampant rumour mill
“Businesses with high employee engagement
have a competitive advantage in their ability to
weather the storm”, according to results of the
tenth annual Best Employers study

9. Achieving employee engagement
• Your organisation’s culture
• Challenges unique to you
• Your internal communication channels

10. The role of organisational
culture
• Is your organisation closed or open?
• Culture is often best understood as: “the way we do
things around here”
• How will your communications be received?

11. Barriers to employee engagement
• Management don’t see the need for it
• Management don’t understand it: “It’s just a newsletter”
• Lack of resource
• Geographical spread; employees are dispersed
• Strategy, culture and values aren’t defined
• Management team is not aligned
• Lack of trust in the management team
• Employees are cynical
• Poor management communication skills
• Variety of media not deployed
• You don’t agree …

12. How to engage your employees
• Start at the top; managers need to be signed up
• Make sure employees have everything they need to do their
jobs
• Clearly communicate what's expected of employees
• Get to know your employees
• Make sure they are trained and retrained
• Constantly ask how you are doing in your employees' eyes
• Pay attention to company stories and rituals
• Reward and recognise employees in ways that are meaningful
• Be consistent in the long term

13. Tactics to deliver engagement through
communication
• Face-to-face briefings
• Email
• Internal magazine
• Intranet
• Employee engagement champions
• Pulse groups
• Podcasts and video-casts
• Consider a employee engagement survey
• Ask the management forums
• Lunch with the CEO
• Voicemail
• Text messaging
• Keep it varied, keep it simple

14. 3 things to remember:
• Employee engagement has a direct link to your
organisation’s success, especially in the downturn.
It’s not merely a “fluffy internal comms action”
• Modern, two-way communications should be a
priority for your HR and PR teams; managers also
need to understand the importance of engagement
• Your people are your business; let them know you
understand that; start at the top; reward and
incentivise

15. Q&A