Are You Fully Engaged?

EMPLOYEE engagement – is the company you work for doing enough of it?

With many staff enduring job cuts and pay freezes – while bonuses continue to roll in at the top end – there is resentment in many firms across the globe.

And yet, against the background of economic gloom, large companies reckon they are doing what they can to listen to their staff and improve relationships. It’s even a legal duty of companies to report on their interactions with staff in their annual accounts.

Companies want and need to attract the best and most talented people. More importantly, they want to keep them. As well as avoiding costly industrial disputes they want to harvest creativity and nurture what they have at their disposal on the shop floor. Particularly in service industries, it is considered that damaged relations between staff and employers could result in the same between firms and their customers. Social media sites, twitter and email mean companies can communicate better and they are doing just that to ensure they keep a satisfied workforce.

Childcare schemes, flexible working and equal opportunities schemes are just some examples of what companies are doing to interact while giving something back to their workforce. However, just because a company has engagement plans in place, does not mean they have a good working culture. Some organisations may just have good staff/company relations as part of their ethos and don’t feel the need to have employee engagement.

And workers have their own career aims, work-life balance issues and personal goals so what makes a good employer is always going to be subjective.

So, what do you think? Is employee engagement in place in your organisation? Or is is such a great place to work, you don’t feel the need for it?