Without employee engagement organisations will collapse. The level of engagement says a lot about about an organisation. Just as we keenly watch cash flow, we should also monitor the degrees of employee energy.
Employee engagement can be described as employee participation, employee involvement, employee buy-In, employee connection, organisational alignment and my personal favourite, employee enthusiasm.
In his seminal work, Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work (1990), William A. Kahn defines employee engagement as: “the harnessing of organisation members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.”
Now that we all understand what employee enthusiasm is, let us appease the lovers of numbers. Are there methodologies that can be used in measuring employee connection to mission and vision?
Employee investment can be measured through a host of tools. Cultural surveys can contribute very much to organisational performance.
Regular check-ins can assist an organisation’s leaders evaluate employees’ challenges, concerns, and motivations.
They can be done weekly, biweekly or monthly. These are intentional conversations that foster employer employee relationship.
Well done check-ins can demonstrate the depth of the connections that are existing. The key parts of check-ins can be goal tracking, personal development, and well-being assessment.
Well-structured exit interviews can also help organisations in understanding cultural alignment. Some people dismiss exit interviews because people lie.
However, they can be made better through conducting them in neutral places, having a neutral interviewer, having targeted questions, building a culture that engenders constructive feedback and boosting active listening. We can also automate exit interviews through third party service provide.
