Employee engagement means motivated, excited, driven team members who bring it every day. It can’t be faked — empty smiles and insincere platitudes don’t translate to team wins and exceptional results. Unfortunately, only 1 in 5 employees say they are very engaged and are planning to stay with their company for the long haul.

Let’s dive into all the reasons engagement is a critical part of the employee experience and how your organization can start boosting employee engagement.

Importance and benefits of engagement

Employee engagement has many benefits, from more satisfied customers to increased revenue.

1. Customer satisfaction

Customers can tell the difference between an engaged workforce and one that’s just putting in time. Research shows that employee engagement is strongly associated with increased customer satisfaction. Whether it’s a customer service representative that goes above and beyond to solve a frustrating issue, a sales professional who anticipates the client’s every need, or just a vendor’s eager attitude every time you call them, engaged employees mean more satisfied customers.

2. Workplace safety

One of the most important benefits of employee engagement is its impact on safety. Gallup found that organizations that rank in the top quarter for engagement had 70% fewer safety incidents than those in the bottom quarter. Engaged employees will always pay attention to the things, both little and big, that can make a difference between a smooth work day and a job-related accident. And they’ll ensure others do the same.

3. Employee performance

Engaged employees perform better — no matter what they put their minds to. Research reveals that organizations with engaged employees outperform their counterparts by 202%. When your team is motivated, not only do they give their all to every task, but they proactively seek out the information and resources they need to succeed. When they don’t, they’ll do what they need to do and check out, whether the result was successful or not.

4. Employee morale

If you’re motivated to excel at your job, you’re more likely to enjoy it. After all, spending hours each day doing something you don’t believe in is incredibly demoralizing. But performing tasks you find meaningful can lead to greater satisfaction both at work and at home. Work to keep employees engaged and higher morale is likely to result.

5. Employee retention

Retaining the best talent is never easy, even when the job market is tight. But boosting employee engagement can help. Engaged employees are significantly less likely to job hunt. When you find your work interesting and motivating, the grass on the other side doesn’t look quite as green.

6. Profitability

The many wins of engaged employees show up in your bottom line: highly engaged business units are 21% more profitable. An engaged workforce brings in new customers, keeps existing ones happy, and inspires their teammates to new heights. And the costs of a disengaged workforce are just as significant: disengagement costs the U.S. economy up to $550 billion per year.

7. Employee wellness

Wellness includes everything that leads to a healthy, well-balanced workforce. Practices like mindfulness, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence are key to mental health, while encouraging fitness and other healthy habits improve physical wellbeing. The draining effect of disengagement takes a mental toll, so keeping employees motivated and committed is an important part of supporting emotional health.

“Long-term stress can cause anger, irritability, headaches and sadness, as well as chronic susceptibility to viruses and infections. If your workplace fosters tension, it’s time to gather employee feedback and ask your team how the workflow needs to change.” – Vanessa Brangwyn, Chief Customer Officer, Achievers

Building employee engagement

What’s the secret to engaged employees? Start by focusing on these two drivers of engagement and you’ll be well on your way.

Give employees a voice

Employees want to be heard. If an organization isn’t willing to demonstrate its investment in their success by listening to their concerns and acting on them, why should they invest their hard work in the company? And if you don’t know why employees are disengaged, how can you ever change how they feel?

Sixty-four percent of HR leaders agree an always-on feedback tool is a must for any successful engagement listening program, but only 20% have this kind of tool in place. Use an employee engagement solution that features a combination of pulse surveys and an always-on feedback channel to keep tabs on employee sentiment and respond to issues in real time. When a survey reveals a problem that’s contributing to disengagement — or one that might impact engagement down the line — your manager can then easily pull the relevant data, present it to their team, and start building a collaborative action plan to address the issue.

Recognize your workforce

Employees want to hear that what they do matters and that their work is appreciated. It’s difficult for any team member to stay motivated and continue to put in extraordinary effort when no one seems to notice — or worse, when others are recognized and they’re not. Recognition has a greater impact on employee engagement than any other factor, and organizations with highly-rated cultures of recognition are 2.5 times more likely to see improved employee engagement.

A successful recognition program has two components: social and monetary recognition. Social recognition is anything from a quick thank you to a public call out during an organization-wide meeting, while monetary recognition should be given in the form of a points-based reward system. Employees can then redeem these points for rewards they actually want, creating a far more meaningful experience than receiving a one-size-fits-all t-shirt or mug. Look for an employee recognition platform that makes social recognition easy and accumulating reward points exciting.

Engage your workforce with Achievers

The right tools make all the difference when attempting to drive engagement. You need to solicit, understand, and act on employee feedback, and recognition should be easy for everyone at your company.

Achievers Listen and Achievers Recognize are the integrated employee experience solution you’re looking for. Achievers Listen makes tracking and acting on employee feedback easy with pulse surveys, intuitive reporting and analytics tools, and guidance that empowers managers to effectively respond to results. Achievers Recognize enables all team members to show appreciation from anywhere with an internet connection, and includes a points-based reward system supported by a catalog filled with products and experiences employees love.

Achievers customers are:

54% more likely to give their culture of recognition a high rating than customers of other technology providers.
2.5x more likely to see increased employee retention.
36% more likely to see an increase in employee engagement.
3.6x more likely than customers of other providers to give recognition multiple times each month.
33% more likely to rate their employer brand higher than customers of Achievers’ competitors.

Start driving employee engagement today with a free demo.