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Strategies for Managing Engagement: Takeaways from a Recent Webinar

Managing engagement and putting employees first should be a top priority this year if you want to retain a happy workforce. We just hosted an educational webinar where we took a deep dive into employee engagement and broke down all the important pieces. We explored key drivers, levels of engagement, and top workplace trends for 2023. Our People Experience Analyst, Quinton Barrett, took us through key findings and data from our 2023 Engagement Trends Report and shared his expertise on where you should focus your efforts for improving and managing engagement in your organization. 

Impact of (Dis)Engagement 

What really is employee engagement anyways? If you look on Google, there are thousands of different definitions, many of which are probably fairly accurate. We wanted to start off this webinar by sharing our definition of employee engagement, which we believe is the emotional connection an employee feels towards the organization and its goals. 

Engagement is a factor that can really impact many other pieces in your organization, both positively and negatively depending on engagement level. When engagement levels are high (over 70%), data shows that you can see things like turnover and absenteeism decrease significantly. Further, you can see business outcomes like productivity and sales increase as well.  

Source: Gallup

Engagement Groups 

When looking at engagement levels among employees, you’ll find that the majority fall into four main engagement groups: Actively engaged, opportunity group, engaged contributor, and actively engaged. The four groups encompass the spectrum of (dis)engagement. On one end of that spectrum, we have the actively disengaged group who are classified by consistently having a negative or unfavorable outlook of their workplace. This group is the most at-risk for turnover and can contribute to a negative work environment for others. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have our actively engaged group who feel deeply committed to their work and organization. They take personal satisfaction in doing well and are very likely to recommend the organization as a great place to work.  

Getting a clear measurement of what percentage of your population falls into each one of these categories is important. By measuring and working on managing engagement levels, you can begin to see positive business outcomes like the ones mentioned in the previous section, and start to see happier employees.  

Historical Engagement 

Over the years, we’ve seen the average engagement level rise and fall. In this webinar, we review engagement rates from 2019 to 2022 and compare the changes in the engagement groups from year to year. We also look into 2022 data by quarter and break down what may have contributed to engagement rates starting strong in the first half of 2022 and then falling in the second half. This data is based on People Element aggregate engagement survey data from over 200 companies and more than 50,000 respondents.  

Workplace Trends 

Wondering what might be in store for 2023? We dive into some top workplace trends for the year and how they shape the workplace. We touch on how going through the pandemic has made employee expectations shift and lean towards wanting more meaningful or purposeful work. Not surprisingly, a growing number of people prefer flexible work styles that allow for a better sense of work/life balance such as hybrid or remote options. Many employees have even stated they would leave their job or take a small pay cut in order to have a more flexible role. This preference is expected to stay for the long run and will likely be considered the ‘new normal’.  

We also noted that high levels of stress and burnout are likely to persist throughout the year and may even increase as pressures of economic uncertainty rise.  

Key Drivers of Engagement 

One of the most important pieces of information that we share in this webinar are the five drivers of employee engagement that we found for 2022. These key drivers were identified by analyzing our aggregate survey data and calculating which items were most correlated with engagement levels. Our data shows that the top drivers of the year were: Growth & Development, Company Communication, Employee Voice, Well-being, and Feeling Valued. We take a look into exactly which survey questions were most correlated with the key drivers and provide a list of action areas for each category that you can focus on for improving employee engagement. 

If you are interested in taking the next step with your employee engagement, explore our all-inclusive employee survey platform that can help you measure and gain insights from your people. We make collecting feedback easy and help you put your insights into action quickly for great results.  

Download Full Webinar

Download the webinar below for the full presentation and dig deeper with our 2023 Employee Engagement Trends Report that the webinar was based on.  

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