Creating a high-performance work environment impacts the bottom line and makes good business sense.
It seems safe to assume that all of us over the last few years have had to make tough personnel decisions. Layoffs, facility closings, pay-cuts, frozen bonuses, and no annual salary increases have been a reality as we shifted our expenses to align with the lower revenue stream.
Is employee engagement in the building product industry just a laughable idea or could we see it played out? Is it terrifying to think about surveying your employees to figure out the level of engagement? Can anyone in the building product industry conduct this survey and get results that improve engagement?
The NC Office of State Personnel defines employee engagement as “the extent to which employees are passionate and excited about their work and consistently strive to deliver quality results.” Engaged employees are excited about their work and work to provide quality results for their organization. Many factors, including leadership, supervision and work environment, can impact employee engagement.
Employee satisfaction describes how content people feel with pay, policies, and conditions. Engagement reflects energy and involvement in the work, the willingness to apply discretionary effort toward organizational goals, even when no one is asking.
Highly committed employees perform up to 20 percentile points better than less committed employees, and are 87% less likely to leave the organization.
The Corporate Leadership Council found there is a real bottom line impact of employee engagement. Unless your employees are highly engaged, they will not expend the level of effort required to move your organization forward. The degree of employee engagement determines the level of employee commitment.
Evidence-based outcomes linked to higher engagement
Research across manufacturing and construction settings consistently links higher engagement with stronger productivity, quality, and customer ratings, and with lower absenteeism and turnover. Operations with more engaged employees also report fewer occupational safety incidents, aligning with long-running meta-analyses from Gallup.
There are two kinds of commitment: rational and emotional.
Rational commitment is:
- The intellectual reasoning that leads employees to remain in an organization (e.g., salary, health benefits, etc.)
On the other hand, emotional commitment:
- Reflects the feelings that employees have about their jobs, such as whether the work performed is of value to the organization
- Drives discretionary effort – how hard an employee is willing to work, going “above and beyond” what is required
- Emotional commitment is 4 times as valuable as rational commitment in increasing effort levels
Conduct an Employee Engagement Survey
An Employee Engagement Survey will help your organization determine engagement and thus organizational commitment. This survey can go to line workers all the way to the head of the organization and can be used for any size group, whether it’s a random sample, a work unit or the entire organization. It is extremely important that management respond to the survey results once the results are collected.
- Use validated, behavior-based items.
- Guarantee confidentiality and simple, mobile access.
- Include one or two open-ended prompts.
- Segment results by site, shift, and role.
- Share results quickly, commit to 1-3 actions with owners and dates, then re-measure.
So, here’s a challenge to all building material leaders . . . take a chance, conduct an employee engagement survey and get a baseline to learn from and improve.
Sources and Additional Articles
