Engaged employees

My boss asked me what is employee engagement. We did not come to a definite answer.

So what is employee engagement really?

According to Wikipedia, "an 'engaged employee' is one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests."

So an engaged employee is more than a happy employee.

And Wikipedia does have quite a good overview to what is employee engagement.

How do we then "make" engaged employees?

Again, Wikipedia has collated some very good pointers of engagement drivers from various good sources. Amongst them are:

• employee perception of job importance
• employee clarity of job expectations
• career advancement or improvement opportunities
• regular feedback and dialogue with superiors
• quality of working relationships with peers, superiors and subordinates
• perception of the ethos and values of the organisation
• effective internal employee communication
• reward to engage

One may be tempted to create the working environment of offices like Google and Zappos, but it takes more than superficially creating the feel and the environment. It takes a lot of heart and soul of the organisation to be in the right place and make meaningful actions and effort to engage employees.

The feel and fun is nice, but for us to be engaged, we need to see something more substantial.

pearlie