WE will continue our management discussion on the above topic by looking at the four levels of employee engagement.
1. ENGAGED AND COMMITTED: These sets of employees are very loyal, committed, and emotionally attached to their organisations to the extent that they see the organisation’s goals as theirs. They love what they do, and are always excited about going the extra mile to make sure that their organisations succeed.
2. ENGAGED BUT NOT COMMITTED: These are employees who are engaged but not committed or committed but not engaged. They appreciate what they do but find it difficult to stretch themselves to meet the assignment given to them. They work only based on the instructions given to them within the stipulated office hours and anything outside that they frown at it. Many employees sometimes fall into this category as a result of bad management practices especially in relation to; provision of working tools; work environment, staff appreciation and reward management; managerial communication and leadership style. Also, internal conflict between and among the workers.
3. NEITHER ENGAGED NOR COMMITTED: These are employees who are just in the office to occupy space. They try as much as possible to dodge any assignment given to them, even when they do, they do it haphazardly. They have thousands of excuses and complaints against the organisation, the boss, the salary structure, the weather, the government, the environment, etc. They have no emotional attachment to the organisation at all. What interests them is the monthly salary and when that does not come on time will form another ground for complaints. Managers should identify these sets of people, find out the reasons for their lack of engagement and/or commitment, try to train and/or redeploy them to areas/departments in the organisation where they may be useful and if the situation remains the same, they should be shown the way out. This is important so they do not contaminate other engaged, hard-working, and committed employees.
4. ACTIVELY DISENGAGED: These are the worst set of employees. They are neither engaged nor committed and on top of that, they try at every opportunity they have to run down the organisation. If they have an opportunity that will bring fortune to their organisation, they prefer to take the business to another organisation. They make jest or talk derogatorily to committed and engaged employees and call them names just to discourage them from being hard-working. They delay jobs, come to work late, or not come at all. They rejoice at the downfall of the organisation, the boss, even their co-workers. Such employees are a negative influence on high performing workers, managers need to take action to eject such people as quick as possible, if not, the result of such inaction will show on other employees’ productivity and the organization’s bottom-line.
BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
1. INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY – Engaged employees are committed employees, and because they are committed they can go the extra mile in achieving a given task even sometimes they use their discretion to work for the benefits of the organisation. The result of this is improved employee productivity and organisational profitability.
2. HIGHER RETENTION – Employees who are engaged with the organisation, appreciate what they do and if the organisation also appreciate them in return, they find it difficult to ditch the organisation thereby making their services available for the organisation for a longer time.
Other benefits of employee engagement include; Rise in profitability; Decrease in absenteeism and Enhanced customer satisfaction.
By next week, we shall look at the role of managers in engaging employees.
Sunday Ade Bello is a multi-talented, analytical and highly qualified Management Trainer, Inspired Writer, Examiner and Education Specialist. He is the CEO of WorkLife Training Professionals, Lagos.
