Engaged employees outperform discontent ones

Employee engagement continues to be a key driver of companies' financial prosperity, with a new survey from Aon Hewitt drawing direct parallels between organizations' performances and the satisfaction of their workers.

According to the latest study, which evaluated businesses located in Central and Eastern Europe, firms with engaged employees outperform those that don't treat their employees as well. The companies that Aon described as being “best employers” achieved 108 percent of their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) goals, compared to the 93 percent of other organizations.

Additionally, these firms had lower staff turnover rates (6 percent compared to 9 percent). Lower turnover reduces the costs of operation, as businesses don't have to spend extra resources on training new hires. Best employers also have lower absenteeism, with the average employee missing only 3.5 days per year compared with 5.5 days at other companies.

“Best employers stand out in the way they reward and recognize their employees,” explains Magdalena Warzybok, engagement practice director at Aon Hewitt. “That will be by offering adequate pay and attractive benefits packages as well as career opportunities. They have an excellent reputation in the job market and show real consistency between this external image and the real internal working experience of their employees. Finally, the quality of their senior leadership teams and their focus on people is a true differentiator.”

Establishing Meaningful Engagement

Employee engagement is a critical part of continuous improvement, but many businesses struggle to actually develop deeper relationships with their employees. This stems from some major misconceptions in regard to what engagement actually is.

For example, many businesses may regard happiness or satisfaction as keys to engagement. They give their employees leisure time or bonus perks in an effort to create engagement. In reality, satisfaction and happiness don't translate into engagement – someone who is happy or satisfied may not be productive or would easily accept a job at another company.

Engagement is more involved than that and requires businesses to establish a deeper relationship with employees. There is no magic silver bullet that can create engagement, rather it's a process that needs to be developed over time.