With the change in the work landscape, employee engagement is top of mind for many individuals. At the beginning of the year, I noticed that fewer individuals were willing to make a career change. It seems some individuals are more concerned about economic conditions, while others are afraid of the dynamics of employee engagement at a new organization. In addition, if a candidate does decide to learn more about a company through interviews, those companies that were more engaged in the process landed the candidate.
Interestingly enough, employee engagement has experienced a noteworthy shift in recent years. For the first time in a decade, the percentage of engaged employees decreased from 36% in 2020 to 34% in 2021. This trend has persisted into 2022, where the current proportion of engaged employees is 32%, with 18% of employees now falling into this category of disengaged.
Employee engagement boils down to effective communication. Effective communication in any workplace among colleagues and management is especially crucial for the success of an organization. It is not enough to simply communicate; communication must be clear, concise, and frequent to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that all needs are met.
Teams that exhibit higher levels of engagement are more efficient and productive, which translates to better outcomes for the company as a whole. When colleagues communicate effectively, they build trust, foster teamwork, and promote collaboration, leading to a better work environment and increased job satisfaction. When management communicates with employees, it means that there is a two-way line of communication for goals to be met and for overall satisfaction from both parties.
In fact, an updated study conducted by Gallup was done to determine the correlation between employee engagement and performance outcomes provided by the organization. The research encompassed a total of 112,312 work units comprising 2.7 million employees.
The information reaffirmed the already established link between employee engagement and effective communication in many key areas, but some to note are:
customer loyalty/engagement
profitability
productivity
turnover (for high-turnover and low-turnover organizations)
absenteeism
quality
wellbeing (net thriving employees)
organizational citizenship (participation)
The State of HR conducted a survey sharing that 22% of respondents stated retaining top talent was the biggest challenge they faced as they confronted the future of work. At a time when retention of employees is challenging and onboarding strong talent is harder than ever, effective communication is crucial to brand your organization and keep your employees happy. It is a key way to build a healthy culture with less burnout. In our work, we keep the lines of communication open. Unfortunately, we find that hiring managers don’t have much time and don’t realize their lack of communication can derail the recruitment process. We buffer that. Since we work exclusively with our clients, we help pull their employee brand into the recruitment communication process. It builds trust when a candidate can speak directly with an outside party asking questions and voicing concerns. This is an incredibly effective way to show that our clients care about investing in communication before someone joins. Our process also builds in long-term retention because we talk about the challenges in addition to the value the candidate can bring.