Employee Recognition & Engagement Resources

Employee engagement may seem like one of those fancy buzzwords that float around, but never really amount to much. But the truth of the matter is that it’s actually a very powerful concept that can both further your company’s culture and, hopefully, improve its bottom line. By actively engaging employees, you have the opportunity to forge an unbreakable bond that allows team members to become fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about the work they’re doing. Without such an atmosphere, you merely have a group that clocks in, earns their pay and calls it day by 5pm.

Recently, Gallup published an in-depth look at the state of the American workplace and within this insightful analysis, they looked at six of the most powerful actions a company can take to build and grow employee engagement within their organization. So, let’s take a brief glance at these dynamic recommendations and discover how they can best work for you.1. Em

Like Santa’s Elves working happily and tirelessly year round, your company’s greatest assets are your fully engaged employees. You know who they are, they’re the employees who work with passion, feel connected to and are proud of the organization they work for. They come to work early and stay late when necessary to get the job done. Fully engaged employees are your greatest asset (Tweet This), and you may be surprised to learn, according to the July 2015 Employee Engagement Report, they represent less than one-third of your workforce. This begs the question, how do you harness the more than 60 percent of your workforce to become engaged?

Gone are the days when annual performance reviews, recognition events, and holiday cards were enough to motivate and engage our employees. All employees (not just the Millennials) are yearning for ways to feel more connected to their organization and its core values. 

This past September at the NSC Expo in Atlanta, OSHA presented the preliminary Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Workplace Safety Violations, reported during the 2015 fiscal year. What's interesting about this list is that it nearly mirrors the same list from 2014, indicating a trend in the most vulnerable areas in on-the-job safety.

The challenge, yet the beauty, of a workforce that is chock full of diverse personalities is finding a way to equally engage employees, no matter their core motivation. I, myself, am a creative, and engaging a creative employee, like me, is different than team members in other departments within C.A. Short Company. I enjoy unleashing creativity to solve problems, I thrive on executing out of the box, yet successful marketing campaigns, and I enjoy sharing my passion and enthusiasm to engage my team. 

We have spent ample time talking about how to engage your employees in the workplace, and we've proven that employee engagement is a key measurement tool of an organization's overall health and performance, as well as a vital contributor to the success of your organizational goals. But, what does a rise in the level of employee engagement mean for your organization in the grand scheme of the business community? Enter the Engaged Company Stock Index.

Paid Time Off (PTO) is a considerable benefit to salaried employees and is often a major factor of whether an employee will accept a new position within an organization. However, it's not uncommon for employees to allow their PTO to remain unused. So, why do employees neglect this essential work-life balance opportunity, which plays an integral role in your overall employee engagement strategy?

Having been in the employee engagement and recognition arena for more than 20 years, I get asked the same two questions when interacting with clients: What is employee engagement and why does it matter?

An "engaged employee" is one who is fully absorbed and enthusiastic about their work, and takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. – Wikipedia

Gallup, Inc., an American research-based, global performance-management consulting company, released their 2014 Gallup Poll results, including statistics regarding U.S. Employee Engagement. The results were quite shocking: