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Employee engagement key to improving performance at work

Tuesday 26th January 2010

By Mike Jones

The significance of employee engagement initiatives across the private and public sectors is reinforced by a new report for for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) by Kingston University.

Creating an Engaged Workforce defines employee engagement as: "Being positively present during the performance of work by willingly contributing intellectual effort, experiencing positive emotions and meaningful connections to others".

Drawing from eight case study organisations, the report confirms that engaged employees: perform better; are more innovative than others; are more likely to want to stay with their employer; enjoy greater levels of personal well-being; perceive their workload to be more sustainable than others.

The report, written by an Employee Engagement Consortium research team based at Kingston University’s Business School, also confirms that employee voice – opportunities for employees to get involved in discussion about work-related matters and communicate their opinion about aspects of their job – is a strong driver of engagement.

IPD Public Policy Adviser Mike Emmott said: "Public sector employees in the case studies show higher levels of social and intellectual engagement than those in the private sector. This is good news since it suggests that many government departments, local authorities and NHS trusts are consulting across departmental boundaries to generate ideas and help produce strategic responses to the major issues they face.

"On the other hand, the report also shows that public sector employees are less emotionally, and less frequently, engaged. This is a real challenge for public sector managers since, unless employees’ hearts are engaged as well as their minds, they are not going to put as much energy as they could into their work. As crunch time approaches for public spending, the workforce needs to be fully engaged in helping to identify and implement measures to reform service delivery. It is only through engaging their employees that public sector employers are going to be able to improve services while helping the government to balance its books."

Dr Kerstin Alfes of Kingston University Business School, the project’s lead researcher, said: "Our research has clearly demonstrated the positive impact of employee engagement on both an organisation’s success and on an individual’s well-being. This is particularly important in a recession; engagement means that staff are willing to go the extra mile to get things done and if an organisation is struggling that could make the difference between whether or not they survive."

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