Integrating New Employees to the Workplace

For some years now, there has been significant change in the culture of many organizations, a shift in the way employees are valued and treated and recognition of the impact employees have on business success. Most organizations attempt to create a culture and environment that reflect their values, mission and goals and some actively focus on engaging their employees as a key driver of success. Employee engagement isn’t a quick fix and it can’t be accomplished with a staff survey, a change in process or procedure, a motivational training course or an HR initiative, it requires an investment in time, energy and commitment from every leader within the organization to drive and sustain it. Only a change in the way an organization thinks, behaves and acts will achieve a culture of employee engagement.

Employee Satisfaction only indicates how happy or content your employees are. It does not address their level of motivation, involvement, or emotional commitment. For some employees, being satisfied means collecting a paycheck while doing as little work as possible. When organizations focus on how to improve employee satisfaction, changes won’t necessarily lead to increased performance. Oftentimes, the conditions that make employees “satisfied” with their jobs are the same conditions that frustrate high performing employees. Top performers embrace change, search out ways to improve, and challenge the status quo. They expect all employees be held accountable for delivering results, whereas low performers avoid accountability, cling to the status quo, and resist change. Employee engagement goes beyond activities, games, and events. Employee engagement drives performance. Engaged employees look at the whole of the company and understand their purpose, where, and how they fit in. This leads to better decision-making. Organizations with an engaged workforce outperform their competition. They have higher earnings per share (EPS) and recover more quickly after recessions and financial setbacks. Engagement is a key differentiator when it comes to growth and innovation. To better understand the needs of your organization, administering an employee engagement survey is key. This is not the same as a satisfaction survey.

Moreover, expectations of employees have changed. Mobile professional careers are much more common than “job for lifers”. Retention of top talent is more difficult than before. A company that has an effective employee engagement strategy and a highly engaged workforce is more likely to retain top performers as well as attract new talent. Successful organizations are value-driven with employee-centric cultures.
Employee engagement surveys have been developed specifically to measure the performance, strategic alignment, competency and satisfaction of contributors. Engagement surveys must be statistically validated and benchmarked against other organizations if they are going to provide useful results. Without these things, it is difficult to know what you are measuring and whether the results are good or bad. Engagement can be accurately measured with short surveys that contain just a few questions, but such short surveys can only provide an indication of whether employees are engaged. They have a hard time explaining why employees are engaged or disengaged because they lack detail. Without sufficient information, an organization cannot develop meaningful activities, training programs, strategies, and initiatives to raise levels of engagement.
In order to get a complete picture of employee engagement, a survey needs to include about 50 to 80 questions that cover a complete range of relevant topics. There should also be open ended questions to further diagnose potential engagement problems in a company.

Upon Completion of this course, you should be able to;

1. Explain Why employee engagement is important
2. Explain How employee engagement is measured
3. Explain When an organization should measure employee engagement

Course Curriculum