The Ultimate Employee Engagement Guide 

• What Is Employee Engagement? 
• Why is Employee Engagement Important? 
• What are Types of Employee Engagement? 
• Benefits of an Employee Engagement Strategy 
• Employee Engagement Ideas
• How to Lead an Engagement Strategy 
• Questions to Guide Your Employee Engagement Strategies 
• How Do You Measure Employee Engagement? 
• Build Your Employee Engagement Plan Today! 

What is Employee Engagement

Employees are your organization’s greatest investment. You likely have metrics to measure this investment, including compensation, benefits and other financial investments like technology or infrastructure. But what about ways to measure the investment your employees have in your company? Invested employees are happier in their workplace and support higher retention, higher productivity and a stronger bottom line for your organization. 

A great barometer of employee investment is employee engagement. In simple terms, employee engagement is a measurement of the emotional and intellectual investment employees make in the workplace. 

Before we explore why employee engagement matters, we can get a better sense of what it is addressing some key areas needed for its success. 

Engagement vs. Talent

All people have natural strengths and talents. But talent growth doesn’t just occur; it takes a dedicated strategy and investment. 

For more than 35 years, Talent Plus has researched the intersection of talent and employee engagement. What we’ve learned is that when talent is recognized from the beginning—and nurtured at every step—employees are happier, more engaged and more empowered to become leaders through their talent strengths. 

Engagement vs. Company Culture

When you walk into your office, what do you feel? How do colleagues connect with one another, both professionally and personally? Do you feel valued and recognized for your work? These are all parts of your company culture, which can directly impact how employees feel and act in their workplace. 

Company culture happens naturally, whether there is intentional strategy behind it or not. Through an employee engagement strategy, you can build a culture that aligns with employee needs and values, which will support overall engagement. 

Engagement vs. Development

Development is not the only factor impacting engagement, but it is a major one. Science shows that development is one of the highest measures for retention. In a recent study, 87% of Millennials reported that “professional or career growth and development opportunities are important to them in a job.” 

As you build an employee engagement plan, consider how you can support meaningful development from day one. When you help unlock an employee’s potential, you also unlock their confidence and engagement levels. 

Engagement vs. Compensation

People feel valued when they are fairly compensated for their work and expertise. But researchers at Stanford found that aspects like a sense of belonging and trusted leaders have a stronger correlation with employee engagement than compensation. 

When fair pay exists within an empowering culture, it will mean even more.  

• Listen to The Power of Empowerment: [https://talentplus.com/podcasts/the-power-of-empowerment-with-larry-sternberg/] 

Employee engagement isn’t just one process or quick trick. It requires a multifaceted, ongoing strategy to create a space where all natural talent can reach its full potential. 

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Think of your organization like a garden. Talented people are your garden’s flowers, all filled with potential. It takes intentional care for people to flourish. If the garden is neglected, the flowers wilt. 

Tending to this garden is critical to organizational success. The Leading Edge Employee Experience Survey listed “feeling like the organization demonstrates care and concern for employees” as the top driver for employee engagement. 

Provide your employees with metaphorical soil, sun and water to help them thrive. Talent blossoms when there is a shared culture of belonging, leaders dedicated to talent growth and opportunities to build new skills. 

What Are Types of Employee Engagement

In general, there are three levels of employee engagement. These levels are based on employees’ reported dedication and motivation within their role at an organization. A good employee engagement strategy will lead to more people reporting as being actively engaged. 

Actively engaged employees are highly driven and motivated. They feel their talents are recognized and aligned with the organization’s greater purpose. Often, these employees exist within a high performing team and under the guidance of a strong, talent-focused leader. 

Not engaged employees aren’t inspired to go above or beyond. They will do the work asked of them, but over time, they will stagnate or slip in their quality of work. Often, this is because they don’t perceive their organization as a place to grow. They don’t feel confident in leadership or that their talents are valued. 

Finally, actively disengaged employees are often vocal in their dissatisfaction with their workplace. They may be actively looking for ways to leave the organization. Within their role, they are not seen as team players and are unwilling to approach work with curiosity or a growth mindset. 

Benefits of an Employee Engagement Strategy

Employee engagement strategies do more than just improve employees survey responses. They have an impact across all aspects of an organization, from retention to profits to public perception. 

• Reduce burnout by giving employees a sense of purpose and motivation. 
• Drive productivity by making every person feel like a valued contributor to their team. 
• Increase retention by building a culture where people want to stay and grow. 
• Strengthen your bottom line by lowering turnover rates and subsequent costs. 
• Attract top talent by integrating engagement in the selection process. 
• Plan for the future by nurturing strong leaders today. 

Employee Engagement Ideas

You can improve your employee engagement strategy by making conscious efforts to nurture belonging every day. Here are several ideas for bringing engagement into daily work routines. 

Opportunity: Staff Meetings

Relationships are critical for a more engaged team. See how you can improve bonding moments during team meetings. Talent Plus’ Focus on You® is a relationship extension activity that builds teamwork and enhances supportive relationships between employees and managers. It is positively designed to focus on successes, goals and interests. 

Affinity Groups

Give employees space to build their own engagement opportunities. Affinity groups allow employees with similar life experiences or passions to build relationships. Groups like book clubs can also improve relationships among team members and boost morale in a safe designed purely for their enjoyment. 

Cross-Generational Engagement

According to Forbes, Millennials and Gen Z employees are reporting lower and lower levels of engagement. They also have unique career needs compared to their Gen X and Baby Boomer colleagues. However, it is important that your engagement strategy takes the needs of all generations into account. Consider ways you can engage colleagues across generations through peer mentorship opportunities. 

How to Lead an Engagement Strategy

1. Understand your strengths as a leader. A good leader knows their strengths and how to best leverage them to support their team. Use a tool like a talent assessment to uncover your top natural talents. Be open to nurturing these talents, as engagement is more effective when leaders lean into their strengths then focus on “fixing” their weaknesses. 
2. Get to know your team. To build an effective engagement plan, you must spend time with each member and understand how their talents work together to form a strong and successful unit. Don’t see gaps in talents as pitfalls; they are opportunities that should guide your engagement strategy. 
3. Invest in development. As we discussed, development is a key part of effective engagement. Provide opportunities for your team members to develop their talents in a way that aligns with their goals. And invest in leadership development too! Executive coaching takes a person’s natural talent and builds on their skills and knowledge to lead. 

Questions to Guide Your Employee Engagement Strategies

What are our employee engagement objectives? 

Employee engagement is much more than one metric. Consider what you hope to achieve–both big picture and at the individual employee level–through your employee engagement strategy work. 

Where are our employees currently? 

We mean a couple things by this question. First, where are your employees physically located? Is your team in person, remote, or a hybrid model? This can help determine the types of engagement approaches you take. Second, where are your employees located on the engagement spectrum? It’s helpful to have a baseline, so you know where and how your team can grow. 

What are our team’s unique needs? 

Clearly assessed needs drive growth and improvement. Use a solution like a team Talent Grid to assess where your team’s strengths and opportunities lie. 

How can we include development in our strategy? 

Development is an essential part of engagement. Leaders need to provide actionable development steps and routine check-ins to ensure progress and identify setbacks. 

How Do You Measure Employee Engagement?

First things first: don’t expect overnight success. Engagement takes time! From the beginning, define your goals to use as a benchmark. Outline actionable steps leaders can take to improve engagement. Then, assess progress made towards those goals through employee feedback. 

A baseline assessment will help you understand where employees are starting on this journey. Use employee pulse surveys that re-ask questions you ask on your baseline assessment. Consider whether you get 1:1 feedback or ask anonymous surveys to increase honesty. 

Outside of surveys and feedback, you can use other metrics to assess greater impact. Things like employee retention can give a good sense of how employees perceive your organization and their place in it. 

Build Your Employee Engagement Plan Today!

Now that you know more about why employee engagement matters, it’s your turn to get started on your engagement journey! No matter where you are in this process, Talent Plus is here to collaborate and find the best science-backed solutions for your organization.