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Employee engagement helps boost the bottom line
3 October, 2007
By Vanessa Ho |
Globoforce, a provider of global, strategic recognition solutions, recently issued the results of a survey that says organizations with formal employee engagement programs will distance themselves from the competition, particularly in the areas of recruiting, retention and bottom line financial results.
The survey derived from an international roundtable on the topic of employee engagement that featured industry experts and was attended by 70 human resource professionals and business leaders from Fortune 500 companies.
According to the survey results, 81 per cent of the participants said they believed that recognition programs were integral to recruiting top talent. Additionally, participants agreed these programs could act as a strong competitive differentiator when attracting candidates.
In addition to the "people potential" benefit, a resounding 84 per cent of the participants agreed that a well-executed employee engagement program will improve a company's financial bottom-line.
"We've seen data over the past few years which showed that an engaged workforce has a direct positive impact on the bottom line. The latest feedback from these business professionals is further evidence that if you don't have a formal engagement program, you're not 'with the program,'" stated Andy Parsley, the director of Green Lion Insights & Solutions, an employee engagement consultancy.
Because of the benefits that an employee engagement program could bring to global organizations, 59 per cent of the participants said that employee engagement is increasingly a hot topic of discussion within the C-suite, gaining that all-important executive "mind share" within their companies.
Parsley added that while employee engagement programs have become an executive-level issue the past few years, more work needs to be done communicating the benefits.
The survey results also exposed several risks in not adopting formal engagement programs, which could lead to disengaged employees. For example, 62 per cent confirmed that fallout from disengaged employees lead to poor quality of work and decreased productivity. Further, 22 per cent claimed disengagement puts companies at risk to losing talent to a competitor.
"Unfortunately, for those 41 per cent who don't believe employee engagement programs are an executive-level issue just yet, they'll find out the hard way -- perhaps before it's too late -- losing valuable talent and business to a competitor," commented David Zinger, an expert on both employee engagement and strength-based leadership.
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