Engagement Model

• Katharine Esty, Ph.D., organizational psychologist and founder of Ibis Consulting Group, Inc., and Mindy Gewirtz, Ph.D., president and founder of Collaborative Networks, developed an employee engagement model that illustrates the various elements needed for measuring and improving employee engagement. In this model, five success drivers contribute to an organizational culture of engagement. These include an understanding of employees' role in the organization's success; the existence of two-way feedback between workers and supervisors; trust in the leadership of the organization; the opportunity to contribute to the decision making process; and the existence of career development opportunities.
  
  

Survey Says

• The inclusion of employee perceptions and attitudes is a key best practice when measuring and improving employee engagement. Employee surveys are an essential tool for gleaning information from employees to determine their level of engagement. Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D., of Development Dimensions International, identified five key best practices for creating employee surveys. These engagement measurement tools must be relatively short, typically 20 to 25 questions or less, to avoid survey fatigue. Questions must also be valid, pertaining to actual engagement factors. The survey must prove reliable in providing similar results within the same organization over time. It must also be limited in flexibility, which means the survey itself, along with the administration of the survey, remains unchanged over time. Finally, the survey must be actionable. In other words, the company should design the questions so organizational leaders may take action to improve the results.
  
  

By the Numbers

• Employee engagement may also be indirectly measured through examination of certain factors, such as productivity, organizational performance, retention and overall financial success. It is also important to understand whether specific measures are a result of employee engagement as opposed to other causes; if this is the case, employers need to gauge how much. For example, the organization might measure performance levels before and after the implementation of a new employee development program to determine whether the program has an influence on both engagement and performance over time.
  
  

Organizational Culture

• Perhaps the most essential best practice in the management of employee engagement is the development of an organizational culture that encourages engagement. Leaders must take steps to communicate the needs of the organization and ensure employees understand how their individual work contributes to the success of the organization as a whole. The perception that individual efforts make a difference is an essential element of the engaged workforce, while proper recognition of employee effort is a key driver of organizational success over the long term.