By Michelle M. Smith October 6, 2015TLNT
Employee engagement continues to drive very positive business outcomes and is a vital concern for leaders around the world, but efforts to improve engagement frequently under perform.
Research from the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), titled Capitalizing on Engagement, indicates the lack of consistent results may be the product of not knowing which solutions best sustain engagement over time, and acknowledges employees’ present experiences don’t provide an accurate assessment.
Most organizations measure engagement by employees’ present perceptions and develop action plans focused on that narrow set of issues, but CEB measured employee perceptions across multiple time horizons to better link engagement action plans to underlying root causes of disengagement.
Their research highlighted the need for a dynamic engagement measurement to understand which factors have the greatest effect on employees’ perceptions of their past events, present experiences, and future expectations.
Past and future dramatically influence engagement levels
Focusing on an extended time horizon enables leaders to better predict employees’ discretionary effort and intent to stay. In fact, measures for past events and future expectations account for 44 percent of employees’ discretionary effort and 67 percent of their intent to stay.
The 3 engagement drivers with the greatest impact
By focusing engagement initiatives on these three drivers, organizations have the best chance of increasing and sustaining overall engagement levels over time.
About the Author
Named as one of the 10 Best and Brightest Women in the incentive industry, a change maker, top idea maven, and President’s Award winner, Michelle M. Smith is a highly accomplished international speaker, author, and consultant on performance improvement. As Vice President of Marketing at Salt Lake City-based OC Tanner, a global recognition company that helps more than 6,000 clients worldwide appreciate people who do great work; Michelle is a respected authority on leadership, talent and employee engagement, and a trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful organizations. She’s President Emeritus of the Incentive Marketing Association, Past President of the FORUM for People Performance at Northwestern University, among many other prestigious board positions past and present. Connect with her at Michelle.Smith@octanner.com or via LinkedIn or Twitter