by Abhishek Mittal
Senior Consultant, Organizational Surveys & Insights, Singapore
Over the last few decades, organizations have invested significantly in employee research as a critical component of their organizational development strategy. From an initial focus on measuring employee satisfaction and commitment, organizations shifted their focus rightfully on measuring employee engagement. There is considerable amount of evidence about the relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance.
However, our latest research is telling us that the constructs around employee engagement need to be taken to the next level. Firstly, organizations should look at providing support to employees in achieving their work objectives. Secondly, organizations should focus on creating a work environment that fosters employees’ physical, social and emotional well-being. We call these factors Enablement and Energy respectively. Taken together, these can help organizations sustainably engage their employees and boost business performance further. While we have in-depth research to validate our Sustainable Engagement framework, a more specific validation of the constructs around Enablement and Energy is evident in some of the latest work we are doing with our clients.
Enablement:
A recent branch-level study of a large Asian Bank yielded rich insights about the factors that can drive a branch’s financial performance. Upon an analysis of over 300 branches, we found a clear link that the direct manager has a large impact on “enabling” employees. When we look at branches where employees are more satisfied with their managers on a range of parameters, the employees tend to feel much more well-supported or enabled to deliver in their roles. Their perceptions about work resources, tools, condition and work organisation are much stronger than other branches. In turn, branches with more “enabled” employees clearly have a higher percentage of engaged customers. And, we saw clear links between engaged customers and higher target achievement on branch-level operating profits.
Energy:
Another key insight from the same study emerged when we supplemented our Engagement construct with questions around stress, well-being and workload. Looking at the top & bottom quartiles of branches on this dimension, we found that employees in the top quartile branches took, on an average, 3 days less of sick leave (excluding hospitalizations) than employees in the bottom quartile branches. This could potentially translate into millions of dollars of lost productivity value.
As companies seek to maximize employees’ contributions, they need to focus not only on Engagement, but building Enablement and Energy too. Companies need to provide effective performance support at the local level by ensuring optimal working conditions, availability of tools & resources, effective work processes and clear directions from supervisors. At the same time, companies need to focus on building a work environment that can sustain high energy levels. For example – respectful treatment of colleagues, effective teamwork and a fair balance between performance expectations & job pressures. Supervisors will play a key role here and companies need to think hard about redefining the role of managers in terms of how they execute tasks, develop people, deliver the deal and energize change, all based on a foundation of trust and authenticity.
The current uncertainties in the global business environment make it all the more important for companies to focus on measuring and managing employee engagement. But, it is also time to take a step back and ask if our engagement constructs are evolving with the business environment.
Abhishek is a senior consultant at Towers Watson and works in the Organisational Surveys & Insights practice. For more information, please email conversations@towerswatson.com.
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