Brisbane's Story Bridge
The image above is the Story Bridge in Brisbane, Australia.

How to engage employees

There is some confusion about what employee engagement is, and how to achieve it.

Human Resources people and a few communicators (e.g. Roger D’Aprix and me) define employee engagement as “discretionary effort” (as measured internationally by the Hewitt Engagement Survey). When employees are engaged they are more than motivated, committed or accountable. They go above and beyond the normal 100% performance expectation and (in Hewitt’s words) “exert extra time, effort, and initiative to contribute to business success”. Note the word extra. Hence “discretionary effort” as the definition.

Less common is the meaning often used by communicators: “to get the attention of employees” (i.e. they are more than just “aware”). For example, in UK communication models (e.g. from John Smythe and Bill Quirke) engagement is shown as being in the middle of “the communication staircase” between compliance and awareness on one hand, and commitment and empowerment on the other. For example, Smythe’s outcome hierarchy is: “compliant, aware, engaged, committed, empowered”. Engaged here means “interested”.

Unless you and your colleagues know exactly what you are talking about regarding employee engagement you have little chance of achieving mutually agreed objectives.

Clearly, employee engagement depends partly on what the organisation is trying to achieve. If your employees enthusiastically embrace the corporate vision and business goals you are half way there. But complete success depends on how you treat or manage your people. Engagement must be mutual. You can’t “inject” engagement into people with some kind of clever communication or motivational strategy. You need to pay attention to at least the factors I’ve listed on my diagram (link below), and you’ll see communication is one of a number of things.

I’ve been working as a consultant in this field for more than 25 years and can help you engage your employees. Recent assignments include interviews and focus groups in a number of organisations to find out how to improve low levels of engagement (as measured by the Hewitt survey). And in one organisation I conducted focus groups so the organisation could win the Best Employer Award (which is measured by the Hewitt Engagement Survey).

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