I suspect anyone can define a layoff employee, so we’ll focus on layoff (the symptoms and costs) in a separate article. How do you define a highly engaged employee and how is it different from a moderately engaged employee? Is the difference the results you achieve? Possibly or related to the right behaviors and attitudes! Hard work is certainly a contributing factor to high engagement, but not the only factor. Let’s take a closer look at the difference.
Highly engaged employees:
- Provide greater efficiency in the fulfillment of their tasks and responsibilities and seek to improve continuously.
- Provide daily interaction with colleagues and strive to support, assist and improve the performance and results of colleagues.
- You can get frustrated and angry at times, but you avoid blaming others and maintain a positive attitude and enthusiasm towards your work and your colleagues when things don’t go as planned.
- Often take the extra steps necessary to ensure products are of the highest quality and free of defects.
- Exhibit great energy and initiative to carry out their responsibilities and all additional tasks required.
- Regularly offer suggestions on improvements, cost-cutting ideas to bring new efficiencies to the workplace.
- Contribute to the big picture by seeking win-win solutions for everyone involved.
- Achieve and exceed company goals despite obstacles.
- Understand the critical importance of pleasing customers and it is this willingness and “effort to please” that builds strong and profitable customer relationships.
- Constantly act as advocates for the company; in social situations, in the community, clubs and associations, etc. This promotion helps attract new talent and introduce new clients to the company.
- Understand the need for change in order to compete effectively in the marketplace and more easily adapt to and support change.
- They are much more expensive to replace when they go and have much less potential to give up to pursue new careers!
Highly engaged employees add value to their companies, in many cases with the same training or comparable salaries as moderately engaged employees. This can be through increased skills, better alignment, increased focus and effort, etc. With ever-increasing competition, all customers are looking for added value in the products and services they need! Take a look at the list above and then you can decide whether your employees fall into the highly engaged or moderately engaged categories.
Highly engaged employees typically make up just 20% of the workforce. If a company can raise the engagement level of the 60% of moderately engaged employees by even a few percentage points (like 10-15%) to develop more skills or focus on company goals, it can pay big dividends for the company. organization in general. It is up to employers to create the right environment for employees that allows them to raise their performance levels and be the best they can be. Successful leaders and companies find ways to encourage, nurture, develop, and cultivate the attitudes and behaviors they require, which will lead to a high level of employee engagement.
