Employee engagement is all about creating a culture that ensures employees feel they have what it takes and everything they need to give their all during the workday. It aims to define how committed employees are to company goals and success, as well as their own personal growth within the company. 

This blog post is the 3rd in a series of five blog posts about creating driver engagement.

One of the largest employment sectors, the healthcare sector employs 1 in 8 Americans, with over 784,000 companies contributing to the $845 trillion dollar industry. These employees are extremely important to our daily lives, however they experience more workplace injuries and illnesses than any other industry. By analyzing employee engagement trends and developing engagement programs, we can reduce workplace accidents and keep our healthcare employees safe.

When aiming to build a workplace focused on employee safety, there are often some misconceptions behind behavior-based incentives and reward programs. Some safety professionals believe that behavior-based safety incentive programs somehow take the responsibility away from management, leaving it solely on the employee, or that behavior-based programs somehow blame the employee for an unsafe work environment. In order to implement a successful safety incentive program, managers and employers must buy in fully into the program, while empowering employees to make safe decisions for themselves and their coworkers.

If an organization's culture produces a high turnover rate, the result is excessive recruitment and training costs. Research shows that employers spend up to 30 percent of the average employee annual salary for each turnover.

This means for every position that pays $10 an hour, it could cost around $3,000 to hire and train someone new. 

Employee engagement is an emerging culture that will continue as long as humans seek acceptance. Until organizations are managed by robots, your employees’ feelings will be as much, if not more, motivation as their paychecks. 

The 2020 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament was a planned single-elimination tournament of 68 teams to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2019–20 season. On March 12, 2020, the tournament was canceled in order to mitigate the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

It was the first time that the tournament had been canceled since its creation in 1939.

On March 11, 2020, the NCAA announced the entire tournament, like the women's, would be conducted with "only essential staff and limited family attendance" due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Some venues (such as those within the states of Ohio and California) enacted further local numerical restrictions on the numbers of those who could attend an event, which the NCAA agreed to respect.

It was also reported that for practicality reasons, the NCAA was considering re-locating some of the later rounds (including the regional finals, and the Final Four, originally scheduled to be held at the 71,000-seat Mercedes-Benz Stadium) to smaller venues within the same host cities.On March 12, the NCAA announced the tournament would be cancelled, along with all remaining winter and spring championships. Source: Wikipedia

Should You Worry About Employee Engagement During March Madness?

Employee engagement and productivity do not have to come to a grinding halt because there is college basketball on that day. An engaged employee is consistently engaged because the organization has created a culture of engagement and recognition. What should be assumed is that an engaged employee who’s ducking out a few hours early to watch his underdog alma mater crush their top-ranked rival worked extra hard, and without interruptions, before doing so. The employees that you should be worrying about are the actively disengaged employees in January, and July, and October.

The Importance of Employee Recognition

There are few things in the corporate world that I would consider “fun.” Most days are chock full of meetings, conference calls, and emails. However, recognizing your employees for achieving a service award milestone, is one of those things that should be a highlight of your day. It should be a chance for you to take a moment to show sincere appreciation for all your employees do for you and your organization. What is unfortunate is that many organizations have not created a strategic employee service award program that creates a culture of recognition within the workplace. By not providing employee recognition training, and not having a formal process in place, many times what should be a fun experience for all, is looked at as more of a burden or waste of time & money.

A quick story. I worked at an organization for about 5½ years right out of college. On the anniversary of my 5 years of service, I received an envelope on my desk with no explanation, my name misspelled, and a small coffee stain on the right corner. I honestly thought I was getting fired in the most inappropriate way I could imagine. As I cautiously opened the envelope I saw a letter from the CEO thanking me for 5 years of service and a small catalog of awards to choose from. The catalog consisted of 5 branded trinkets ranging from a stress ball to a hat. To top it off, it was going to take nearly 4 weeks for me to get the hat. I left the office that day feeling less appreciated than I did the day before. I felt defeated and unappreciated for the 5 years and countless hours of overtime I had given that company.

So, the point of the story is, just because your company has a Service Award Program, doesn’t mean that it is well-structured, nor that it is having the impact on your employees that you believe that it is. In fact, it could be doing more harm than good.

I didn’t expect my last post of 2018 to be about an old football game. And I guess, in many ways, it’s not.  

It’s about underdogs achieving the impossible. It’s about identifying what it takes to be successful and then doing it. It’s about what defines us, as a company and as people. And for C.A. Short Company, it’s all about our incredible employees and customers.

We’ll get into all of that a bit later. But first, football.

When it comes to identifying the benefits of employee engagement, there’s certainly no shortage of information. There are hundreds of studies, thousands of blogs, and millions of search results dedicated to the topic. You can easily discover how employee engagement decreases turnover, improves staff morale, and reduces safety incidents.

What you might struggle to find, however, is detailed information on how to measure your employees’ engagement impact on your firm’s overall productivity. We’re going to change that with today’s article!

Join us as we take a closer look at how small improvements in employee engagement can lead to big changes in productivity.