“Employee engagement makes a vital contribution to the preservation and promotion of the company brand and the bottom line”, according to Leon Vergnes, Senior Vice President EMEA of the American company ADP and one of the promotors of employee engagement. Without the engagement of employees, a company is doomed to failure, but in order to gain it, it is vital to foster communication and transparency in every internal process.
It is able to influence the ability of employees and the solidity of a company to such an extent that a number of studies, such as that conducted by Alex Edmans show that companies with higher levels of job satisfaction produced higher returns for their shareholders. More specifically, this report asserts that the companies ranked among the top 100 companies to work for in the US produced yearly returns of between 2% and 3% higher than those of companies not included on this list.
Of particular interest in this sense is the report published by the ADP Group on engagement. The article describes five good practices to implement at every managerial level to guide the promotion of talent as a part of a company’s strategy.
From the lowest levels of the organisation, all employees must be aligned in a common strategy that combines leadership, integration, access to technology and training. Moreover, it is essential that senior management involve employees in the strategic plan, and in order to achieve this, communication is the key tool.
The age of hyperconnectivity has given rise to a completely different scenario that has developed through different stages. Social networks were first perceived by companies as an irrelevant element, later a threat, and now what they really are – an open and participative space for speaking, listening and learning.
Considering that employees have the ability to become ambassadors should be seen as an opportunity. Not only do employees increasingly seek to invest their time and money in companies that show a real responsibility to their environment, but society as a whole. Which is why it is important to be in tune with internal and external communication, to encourage tools that enhance transparency in all areas of the organisation and to involve different stakeholders in the strategic decisions that are taken.