Eddie LeMoine speaks on building an engaged team.

Over the last few years I have heard lots of people talking about employee attraction and retention. But what if you’re attracting and retaining the wrong employees? Too many companies are concentrating their efforts on employee recruitment and retention and missing the real opportunity with employee engagement. Why engagement? Why now? Employee engagement is the easiest way to add productivity and profitability to your company, and the timing is perfect, companies that learn to engage their employees will have a significant competitive advantage. As the baby boom generation heads off to retirement a talent shortage is imminent. The numbers can be staggering with accepted figures of employee disengagement being as high as 57% there is lots of room for improvement. Engaged employees are more productive and less likely to look outside of your organization for employment. As many as 55% of your disengaged staff are looking for employment elsewhere. And oh that other group, the actively disengaged, only operates at about 50% productivity and is actively recruiting new members to join the ranks of the unhappy.

So how do we fix it?

The task may seem daunting but the journey to engagement is really not that difficult. It does however require a shift in thinking, Employee engagement is a way of thinking first and a way of doing business second. Some key areas in improving employee engagement are as follows:

Get to know your employees:

Understanding the needs of each employee and ensuring those needs are being met are critical components to closing the engagement gap. Through this process you will also discover where each member of the team fits with the overall direction of the organization.

Leverage upon their strength:

Every employee wants to feel their role is expanding and growing, understanding your employee strengths and leveraging it will empower the employees and move them to the engaged ranks.

Motivating your employees:

There has never been a time where understanding how to motivate your team was more critical. Today’s managers must learn the unique requirements of as many as four generations in the workplace. Understanding generational differences will give you the tools needed to create an environment to satisfy everyone’s needs.
Employee engagement is not just another business buzzword. It is becoming a key measurement of the executives review process. Included in many companies financial results are employee engagement figures. Future leaders will require the skills, knowledge and tools to build and engaged team. If you are a manager or leader you will do well by discovering the advantages of creating and engaged team. Create and engaged team and your attraction and retention issues will be a thing of the past.

Thanks for reading my blog; I look forward to coming back in the future….

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 11:41 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.