Employee Engagement in China
- Published in 25 October, 2011
- Practical application for organization development, see the bigger picture by looking closer
Employee Engagement – A global phenomena
Many multinational companies are currently using employee engagement surveys to benchmark their organizations.
The reason companies use employee engagement surveys is mainly because the world´s largest performance study* has proven that highly engaged employees have a huge impact on the company´s Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
The positive impact to a company´s KPI´s when employees answer “I Strongly Agree” to a series of statements - such as: “I know what is expected of me at work” - can be seen below.
Impact of having highly engaged employees:
- Profitability: +12% - 44%,
- Productivity: +18% - 50%
- Customer satisfaction: + 43% - 50%
- Employee turnover: (- 13%) – (-51%)
* the specific questions producing above results are researched from interviews with 80,000 managers and validated in 12 distinct industries.
The benefits of having a highly engaged work-force are clearly shown and most companies naturally want to reap these rewards. Many of the large Fortune 500 have already launched global efforts with this specific purpose and global employee engagement surveys are typically country specific and provide critical insights into the untapped potential for these key performance indicators.
Speed is of utmost importance – Act at team level
The challenge lies in quickly assessing the levels of engagement for every entity down to team level inside of a company – to find out the most critical engagements elements - then just as fast cascading customized information and action plans down through the whole organization to each team manager.
Speed is critical due to the fact that employee engagement changes quickly; typically you will need actions within two weeks from the survey. Negative KPI effects are severe in a team where for example the employees do not have the materials and equipment to do their work right.
Creating true win-win by providing an optimal performance environment
By implementing customized action plans according to their teams engagement level, each manager can stake out a road to success aimed at increasing these KPI’s, while creating a win for the company, the team and him- or herself.
- Joakim Hoffman