The Importance Of Employee Engagement

Jan 19, 2012 by admin    No Comments    Posted under: Sponsored

I’ve been fortunate to be in management positions for majority of my short career.  I’ve been the General Manager for a small locally focused business in which I was able to manage employees ranging from part-time college students to full-time career professionals.  I’ve managed client-facing teams responsible for driving results for clientele.  I’ve also managed teams who’ve worked on and drove strategic projects and initiatives for our company.  There are many lessons that I’ve learned through my time as a manager.  I have experienced both victory and defeat, and feel fortunate to have learned what I have learned thus far.

One of the challenges of management is finding ways to motivate employees for optimal performance.  There are many ways in which employees can be motivated.  Almost without fail, employee engagement has proven to be one of the sure ways to motivate individual employees.  Here are a few lessons that I’ve learned about employee engagement:

1. Meaningful engagement drives job satisfaction.  Special assignments, increased responsibility, special projects and the opportunity to contribute thought and insight into important decisions are all great ways to meaningfully engage an employee.  Engagement often shows an employee that they are trusted and that their opinion is valued.
2. Lack of engagement often drives skill attrition.  Skills are like muscles: if you don’t use them, you lose them.  Often times, employees are hired for a specific skill set.  If meaningful engagement does not occur, it is easy for those skills to suffer from atrophy.
3. Feedback and accountability is crucial.  Good employees thrive on feedback and accountability.  Part of the engagement that they crave comes from knowing what they are doing well, what they need to improve and feeling ownership of projects.

I feel grateful to have worked for managers and companies who have engaged with me in meaningful ways.  I feel that my career and skill development can mostly be attributed to the meaningful experiences I have had with managers and other employees.  If not for the employee engagement I experienced, I do not think that my career would have been as enjoyable as it has been.  Much thanks to the great companies and managers that I have been able to work for.

Disclaimer: I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog for an employee engagement company and was compensated.  However, the views and opinions are my own.

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