Passionately Engaged

Posted by Ricki Sharpe on July 9, 2007  
Filed Under Talent Management

Employee engagement is the new Holy Grail for organisations worldwide. Recent Australian studies have shown that only 20% of employees are actively engaged with their roles and their workplace. 20% of employees are actively disengaged with their roles and their workplace. The remaining 60% are floating somewhere in between.

Well, here’s another study that looks more closely at the drivers for employee engagement and finds that passion is a key.

Employees who are passionate about their companies are the best performers, regardless of industry, tenure or gender, according to a recent study by PeopleMetrics into employee engagement among 5,095 workers across the United States.

Purpose & Empowerment, Trust & Confidence, Security & Growth, Connection & Affiliation, Excellence & Reputation and Recognition & Value play a bigger role in driving employee engagement than do functional factors. When done well, the results are impressive.

Fortune 500 companies in the lowest quartile in company profitability had 50% fewer engaged employees compared to those in the top quartile, according to the PeopleMetrics study. In terms of individual performance, PeopleMetrics found high performing employees were twice as engaged as their low performing counterparts.

Pay, benefits and resources to do one’s job are necessary for a certain level of employee engagement, but these are not sufficient to drive the highest levels of employee engagement and performance. This study found that creating emotional connections to employees is what truly matters because this is where organisations can dramatically boost employee productivity and business outcomes.

Many CEOs and corporate leaders are mentioning love and passion as the secret ingredient to success. Campbell Soup, Apple Computer, Starbucks and dozens of other leading companies understand the importance of making an emotional connection to employees to drive business outcomes.

Keeping your employees engaged really is not rocket science. The concept of feeling love or passion for one’s company is gaining ground because a passionately engaged workforce is a becoming an important differentiator in the marketplace.


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