Employee Engagement vs Company Values
Employee engagement has become somewhat of a buzzword, but what is employee engagement?
Well, there's no clear definition that everyone agrees on but the essence of every definition is based on the employees' emotional connection to the organization and their work.
A study by Harvard Business Review showed how 71% of managers surveyed, agreed that employee engagement was one of the keys to overall organizational success.
Dr. John Demartini, a world-renowned human behavioral psychologist, states that we behave and live our lives based on our highest values.
Low employee engagement is created by the incongruency between organizational values and employee values. Likewise, high employee engagement is fostered when organizational values are married to employee values. This is by no means the only way to increase employee engagement but it's the best place to start.
The fight for high employee engagement needs to first happen at the recruiting phase where the applicant's values can be assessed to see whether or not they will be a good fit when it comes to integrating them into the company culture. Then the fight for higher employee engagement is taken further when the organization takes its own values seriously by behaving in line with them - employee buy in will be higher if this is done by executives - and by promoting those behaviors as part of the organization's brand identity.
Ever heard of the phrase "it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks"? Well, it's equally hard to raise employee engagement when one is already an employee. The earlier an organization can fight for employee engagement, the better the results they'll experience in getting and retaining top talent.