What is employee engagement in business? Difficult question, as the notion has become so overused. This is why this article invites you to question yourself on what engagement is and the meaning it can take in each organization. A good starting point to present some levers to stimulate this famous employee engagement in companies, but also to measure it.

What is employee engagement in business?

Traditional definition of employee engagement in business

First of all, employee engagement is not exactly the same as motivation at work. Indeed, an individual can feel motivated by their work, their missions, their environment, but not necessarily feel engaged towards his organization. Thus, employee engagement can be defined as: the level of investment of the employee towards the organization for which he works, beyond the sole scope of his position.

This definition is a bit vague, of course. But it is difficult to provide a more precise definition, because each company, depending on its context and objectives, will produce its own definition of engagement.

Define commitment by qualifying it

To define employee engagement in a company, we turned to Human Resources professionals. Very quickly, our discussions came up against a question: To hire yes, but engage in what exactly ? Because the notion ofcommitment is not sufficient in itself. It is essential to move away from the search forcommitment at all costs to question the company's objectives and its expectations of its employees.

In the following video, Marie de Beauregard, HR Director at HOPSCOTCH Group, evokes well this need for set global objectives before measuring any commitment:

"The notion of commitment depends entirely on the context in which we find ourselves. It becomes interesting from the moment we clearly define the expectations."

We invite you to question yourself about the context that your company is going through. What investment do you expect from employees? What form should the commitment take?

As you will have understood, it is essential to specify one or more concrete objectives to define what you expect from employee engagement, and therefore, what action plan to put in place.

How to develop employee engagement in business?

Listen to the collaborators

Whatever your goals, it is always best tolisten to your colleagues to keep them engaged. By listening to them, you show them that their opinion matters. This encourages their engagement.

For example, use your internal tools to generate surveys, polls, and create appointments! For example, the survey of the week, every Monday. One question can also be enough: are you satisfied with this new feature, what did you prefer at this event, what new content would you like to see, etc.? Surveys and polls are a way to regularly take the company's "temperature" and understand the needs of your employees.

Listening to your employees can also involve: listening to their ideas. Thus, the digital idea boxes, where the participatory innovation platforms will allow you to create ideation spaces. In other words, spaces where they can propose ideas to improve products, processes, quality of life at work, etc. It all depends on the goals you have set for yourself!

Finally, know that these spaces of ideation can be made into events by a logic of challenges. On your digital platform, organize Idea challenges on topics that are important to the company. For example, QVT in January, performance in February, CSR in March, etc.

Do what you say, say what you do 

If you ask your employees for their opinions or ideas, it is essential to show that you have taken their suggestions into account. And this, in one way or another. You can do it in different ways:

• En thanking employees for taking the time to give feedback or ideas, you are showing your interest in them. For example: " Thank you for your participation! 60% of you think that we could optimize waste reduction.« 
• You can also simply follow their advice, and say so ! For example : " As you requested, the next webinar will be on waste management"

Moreover, the abstract is essential! If you don't communicate, your employees will feel like they gave their opinion for nothing. So always remember to publish a newsletter, an article, a publication, to keep them informed. You will explain how their ideas were taken into account. You can also keep them informed of a decision-making process for example.

Lean on playful springs 

Gamification is also a very effective lever for developing employee engagement in companies. Firstly, because it encourages employees to participate. But also, because it allows you to reward those who get involved, thus creating a virtuous circle that stimulates engagement even more! This gamification can, for example, take the form of competitions, challenges or engagement rankings.

[READ ALSO: Creating employee engagement through gamification]

Competitions

To engage your employees around a given theme, imagine for them devices inspired by BtoC competitions! Burger King, for example, is the king of engaging operations on digital and social networks. For example, to generate endless comments, posts with record like rates, etc.

Challenges

More collaborative than competitions, challenges consist of the employee carrying out an action, then challenging his colleagues to do the same. You can draw inspiration from famous challenges such as the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Another example: if one of the pillars of your corporate culture is solidarity, take a photo of yourself carrying out a solidarity action, share it and challenge one of your colleagues to do the same. Once again, think about imagining a challenge linked to the objectives you have set for yourself. But virality is assured!

Points and rankings

Depending on the digital tools you use, the points and ranking systems can finally be good drivers of engagement. On Beeshake for example, the engagement of your collaborators (likes, comments, writing posts or articles, etc.) earns them points. Such a system boosts participation individually, and as a team! In addition, the employees most engaged in sharing ideas and circulating intelligence become easier to identify and value.

How to measure employee engagement?

Measuring is driving. Measuring employee engagement in a company is essential to check whether your objectives are being achieved. The indicators that you will define to measure engagement obviously depend on the objectives that you have set. However, here are some KPIs that you can surely use. They will help you measure the level of engagement of your employees: 

• Level of knowledge of employees regarding the company's objectives and challenges
• Participation rates in surveys and polls
• Number of reactions to the content you post
• Quality of these reactions
• Number of proactive contributions on identified priority themes
• Number of ideas or innovations proposed by employees
• Participation rate in events that you organize on the identified priority themes

Not all of your actions will generate the same engagement rate. Make regular reporting, and note the most effective actions for adapt and reproduce them.