One of the key factors to running a successful business is knowing how to engage employees. If the leaders of a business or organization understand the level of passion their workforce has for the job, they are a step ahead of the competition.
As a manager, you want your employees to have pride in what they do and, in the company, they work for. Those who work with purpose put forth their best efforts; a practice that can only benefit the goal of your organization. It’s important to look at every aspect of why people do the work they do and what drives them to do it.
If you are operating in a managerial position, getting to know your employees will be a key part to a successful evaluation of how engaged your team is. From their backgrounds to their hobbies, skill sets, family life, all the aspects of your employees will end up becoming part of your workplace environment. Arming yourself with the knowledge on how to blend that into a productive, positive environment is an important skill to have as a manager.
Ask yourself, just how much do my employees genuinely care what happens to the organizations’ future? Are they dedicated to helping it expand and be successful? If you aren’t sure of the answers yet, it’s okay.
Here are six of the key characteristics of engaged employees we’ve observed over several decades of measuring employee engagement.
1. Engaged Employees are Emotionally Committed to Their Organization
They like their company and genuinely want the best for it. They see its success as aligned with their own.
2. Engaged Employees Have an Excellent Attitude
They have a positive, can-do way of approaching daily work—no grumbling or shuffling. They’re happy to be members on all kinds of teams, even if it’s not in their core area of business interest.
3. Engaged Employees Go the Extra Mile
They do what’s needed to get a project done, and aren’t lined up like sprinters waiting for the starting gun to bolt out the door at 5 p.m. It’s about the work, not the time.
4. Engaged Employees are Collaborative
As might be expected, they’re excellent team players and get along well with others. As a manager, there’s no need to worry about delicate, dicey team dynamics. (Or, if there are still some challenging team dynamics, dollars to doughnuts engaged employees won’t be contributing to them.)
5. Engaged Employees are Responsible and Reliable
If they say they’ll do something, they will; you don’t need to remind them three times. Diligence is part of the fabric of how they work. And for this reason—depending on other characteristics too, like authority combined with interpersonal skills—they can be good potential candidates for management as well.
6. From a Management Standpoint, Engaged Employees are Just Plain Old Easy to Work With
There’s a variant of the old 80/20 rule (80 percent of your business tends to come from 20 percent of your customers) that’s super applicable to employee engagement. It goes like this: “80 percent of your time tends to be spent on the 20 percent of your employees who are more challenging and demanding.” Your highly engaged employees definitely aren’t among that demanding, time-devouring 20 percent. They do an outstanding job with very low management maintenance.
The Bottom Line
The benefits of engaged employees have a trickle-down effect throughout the entire company. Those who are showing up with feelings of pride and motivation to work provide a higher quality service to your customers. When customer satisfaction is high, profits tend to rise. In turn, shareholders received a better return on their investments.
Ready to learn what’s driving engagement at your company? We’re here to help.
About Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work® is the Global Authority on Workplace Culture. We make it easy to survey your employees, uncover actionable insights and get recognized for your great company culture. Learn more about Great Place to Work Certification.
