Engaged Workers = More Productivity, Profitability and Safety

Research shows that strong worker communities within organizations deliver stronger workplaces with less waste, higher quality and better safety ​

By Adam Chose

Employee engagement has undoubtedly been a hot topic in recent months. As we head into the new year, it will certainly remain a key focus as companies look to adopt new technologies and management strategies to drive not only a culture, but a community of high performance. In other words - a highly engaged workplace. 

While companies may be investing heavily in worker engagement programs, according to Harvard Business Review those seeing real change are going beyond the typical employee engagement surveys and driving worker engagement at all levels through more consistent touch points. They are focused on long term worker-powered strategies and experiences designed to drive retention and increase satisfaction. Simply put, having an environment that truly invests in its workers so that they are motivated and engaged results in innumerable benefits not just for employees but for the employer as well. 
 

• ​Productivity and Profitability Soar - When a team is fully engaged, they are more focused and can produce at a higher level, more directly contributing to a company’s success.  In fact, a recent Gallup News poll reported those with highly engaged teams report were 21% more productive. And with more productivity comes the potential to increase income and profitability. Harvard Business Review suggests high-engagement companies are four times more profitable than their competitors, have double the revenue on average and earn almost three times more revenue per employee.
• Safety Rules - Companies with a true culture of engagement often see much safer work environments as well. In a study of more than 82,000 business units and 1.8 million employees across 230 organizations, Gallup News says that those business units with engagement scores in the top ranks of their employee engagement database have 70 percent fewer safety incidences compared with those companies ranking at the bottom. When workers are disengaged, they are more likely to overlook key safety protocols and are not as invested in their own performance or that of their larger team or organization. This can quickly stifle a company’s growth and create serious worker safety issues. Having an army of powered workers is critical for this reason alone.   
• Innovation Improves - Workers who feel empowered and more engaged on the job directly contribute to a more innovative culture. When compared with other companies, those that invested heavily in the worker experience are frequently listed as being more innovative. For instance, In its benchmark study on employee engagement, TalentMap polled more than 1 million employees from organizations in the United States and Canada in its benchmark  study, and the top 10 percent of organizations with high levels of engagement scored much higher on innovation statements. Encouraging and celebrating new ideas and being willing to take risks lets workers know a company is invested in their personal growth.

Getting Started
What are organizations doing to build worker-powered communities? Most important is tapping into technology that allows companies to get connected and informed. Creating a robust worker engagement platform for real-time communication among workers enables opportunities for encouragement and provides incentives around reporting, data and of course,  safer behavior. 
 
Not only will the right worker engagement strategy create a safer, more productive workplace but will result in a more innovative environment, increase retention and more quickly grow your business. ​ 

Adam Chose is Director of Sales for Corvex. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.