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Engage or estrange: Why don’t bosses listen to what matters to their staff?

If you think your boss doesn’t know how to motivate or engage you at work, you’re probably right. A new report on staff engagement by recruiting experts Hays found a disparity of up to 13% between what people say engages them at work and what employers think engages their employees.

Hays surveyed 1,196 employers and employees. The recruiter found that being valued, recognition for a job well done, and understanding how their success will be measured are the top three engagement factors for employees. Yet employers believe that ensuring staff understand how their role contributes to the organisation’s success, how their role helps the organisation achieve its objectives, and feeling valued are most important.

“An engaged workforce is typically one in which employees understand and are committed to an organisation’s values and objectives, and are passionately motivated to go above and beyond to help achieve its goals,” says Jason Walker, Managing Director of Hays in New Zealand.

“But this doesn’t just happen. Employers need to focus on both intrinsic and extrinsic engagement factors and understand what really matters to people, rather than assuming they know best.”

Top 12 engagement factors - employee and employer attitudes compared:

Engagement factor	Percentage who rate this ‘very important’ or ‘important’
	Employees	Employers
Individuals feel valued by the organisation	97.26	87.12
Individuals are recognised for a job well done	94.75	86.87
Individuals understand of how their success will be measured	94.63	84.85
Individuals understand how their role helps the organisation achieve its objectives	94.38	87.37
The organisation clearly communicates its objectives and strategy	93.88 Advertisement - scroll to continue reading	86.87
Individuals have a feeling of inclusion, where differences are valued	92.63	84.1
Individuals feel like they have a ‘voice’ and can share their opinions at work	92.5	86.61
Individuals see action taken as a result of their feedback	92.0	85.1
Individuals understand how their role contributes to the organisation’s success	91.88	87.62
A good induction and onboarding process	91.37	83.34
Regular learning and development opportunities	90.5	82.83
Yearly salary reviews	86.88	73.49

According to Hays, 97% of employers believe staff engagement is important while 90% say an engaged workforce has a greater positive impact on an organisation’s financial performance. Yet just 40% believe that the majority of their staff are engaged.

In its Staff Engagement: Ideas for action report Hays provides practical strategies to help organisations improve employee engagement, including:

Intrinsic factors:

• Purpose: Employees who understand what they are working towards feel a greater sense of purpose. So communicate objectives and strategy, as well as employees’ role in achieving them.

• A sense of being valued: Employees want to know how their success will be measured, what achievements constitute success, and be valued and recognised for good work.

• A sense that their emotions are respected: Managers need to work on their emotional intelligence (EI) as it makes them aware of their own feelings and those of their team.

• A sense of being treated fairly: Employees want to feel that they are respected and treated fairly by a manager who is dependable, trustworthy, and who they can work collaboratively with.

• Satisfaction from making a difference: People increasingly gain satisfaction from working for an organisation that helps to make a difference in the community, so embrace CSR.

Extrinsic factors

• Induction and onboarding: No one forgets a difficult adjustment period so provide an effective induction, and then use onboarding to engage staff with your culture and values.

• Performance management: People want to know how they’re performing, where they’re going and how they can improve. Have you considered regular two-way progress reviews?

• Reverse appraisals make their voice louder: Reverse appraisals make a positive difference, provided you take feedback seriously and employees see change as a result.

• Diversity of thought: Include staff, help them feel that they can be themselves, share different perspectives and provide an honest opinion. This helps employees feel their opinion counts.

• Money: An annual salary review is important, while to engage employees they need to understand what objectives must be met in order to qualify for any performance-based bonus.

• Learning & development: People want to be good at their jobs – and they want you to care about investing in them. This makes L&D a crucial tool in nurturing and engaging staff.

• Flexibility: Flexible work practices will help keep engagement high. This is just as important for working fathers and other members of your workforce as it is for working mothers.

• Work environments: The key to whether a ‘cool’ work environment impacts engagement positively or is a distraction depends on if it reflects and enhances your organisation’s culture.

• Technology: Consider how technology can impact employee engagement. This includes the online delivery of training and gamification, as well as using collaboration tools for business.

• Offboarding: An offboarding process helps departing staff stay engaged – important when their opinions on company review sites like Glassdoor impact the perceptions of future candidates.

Hays’ suggestions are supported by findings from a survey of 396 employers and 800 jobseekers, in addition to other external studies. Of the 1,196 employers and employees surveyed, 10% were based in New Zealand and 90% were based in Australia.

For more, see the Hays Staff Engagement: Ideas for action report at www.hays.net.nz/staff-engagement.

Hays, the world’s leading recruiting experts in qualified, professional and skilled people.

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