Employee engagement: What's the ultimate definition?

By Sona Hathi, Editor, Melcrum

Definitions. Oh how we love them. They give us clarity, meaning and comfort and communication professionals in particular seem to love nothing more than a debate on some of our function's most thrown-around terms. While these debates are always interesting and entertaining, it is important for us to be able to define terms such as "engagement", "employer brand" and even "internal communication". Because while within our professional community, these terms need no explaining. But try and define "employee engagement" at a dinner party and the chances are you'll fumble around with words like "loyalty" "passion" "going above and beyond expectations" "happy" and "satisfied", only to receive a cynical and disengaged reaction from your friends.

Definitions, by nature, are always going to be open to debate, they'll evolve as time goes on and organizations and workforces change. This has been evident in the changing definition of employee engagement. Once upon a time, to be an engaged employee meant that you were satisfied, happy and loyal. A few years later, an engaged employee was one would who proudly recommended their employer to others, and a few years after that, an engaged employee was an involved employee. But now, after a global recession that has left many employees feeling insecure and disillusioned, but simultaneously more knowledgeable about business and economic issues, I'd safely bet that the status quo on the definition of engagement has changed once again. In last week's Melcrum Poll, we offered 5 definitions of employee engagement and  asked you to choose which one you most agree with. Over 100 people responded and here are the results:

• "Employees who think and act as business people" - 9%  
• "Getting employees' hearts and minds orientated to the business" -  33%
• "Employees who say, stay and strive" - 13%
• "Intellectual understanding and emotional commitment" -  34%
• "Employees who create a lasting difference to the customer" - 8%
• Other 3%

These results show that today, engagement is less about making a difference to external customers, neither is it simply about being able to speak business language. It's more about an alignment of an emotional and intellectual connection with the business. Employees need to understand the business and the role they play in it, feel challenged and supported in carrying out this role, as well as find enjoyment in the overall experience of doing so. In order to feel this way, they also need to feel respected and recognized as individuals who lead rich and busy lives outside the workplace. 

Now, enough about the theory, I urge you to come and meet people who live and breathe this topic at our employee engagement conference in London next month, (Australia's all sold out!) where we'll be looking at how you can put communication at the forefront of employee engagement. In the meantime, have your thoughts around engagement changed in recent years? Is there something new we should be considering now, in addition to what's mentioned above? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[Mike Klein]

Your piece--and the success of your upcoming conference--exemplifies the paradox of the whole "employee engagement" conversation.

By factoring in--and promising (relatively cheap) improvements--in such a wide range of areas, the use of the term "employee engagement" creates a lot of appetite. On the surface, it's become a low-calorie apple pie--sweet, tasty, wholesome and hard to dislike.

But below the surface, some of these promises can be incompatible, and some of the methods counterproductive.

There is a lot of oversimplified, top-down-one-size-fits-all stuff in this space. There's a lot of screw tightening--from managers hectoring employees to calibrate their engagement scores according to how their companies interpret "engagement" surveys.

There's a general trend towards wanting smiling, committed employees who produce little friction, but in a post-recession economy, it is friction that creates more new ideas than smiles.

And, most dangerously, internal communicators are often tasked with disproportionate responsibility for creating "engagement" without having access to the necessary tools, levers or criteria do to so with any effectiveness.

[Drew Hawkins]

I believe another part of employee engagement that should be addressed is recognition. Using recognition and awards for employee achievement is a huge factor in increasing employee engagement. That's just one other definition though