How important is employee engagement in an organisation? How does employee engagement contribute to the motivation of employees?

1) Employee Engagement is not only about happy employees and satisfied employees; in fact it is about employees getting emotionally attached to the work.

Example from real life:- I went to buy a t-shirt in a retail store, all the employees were enjoying their work and banging their heads on music beats. They were enjoying at the cash counter where as no one assisted any of the customers. Hence, I noticed that they were happy but not engaged.

2) Secondly, Customer is NO longer the "king"!

Example: I remember my Grandma telling that during their times they had no choice between companies or products etc, they had to purchase food from the ration store whether it was a good quality or bad they had to buy it or else they had to sleep empty stomach. But, slowly and gradually private sectors started emerging up and these ration stores had competition and that's when the customers became the "king". And slowly free gifts, vouchers, coupons etc started to attract customers.

Similarly, Employees today have n number of companies in front of them to choose and hence it is very essential to retain them. And that is what HRM is all about : procurement, development and maintaining employees.

Hence, Employees are the “King” and customer is promoted to the position of “Emperor”

Sir Richard Branson has rightly said “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients”.

3) There is a difference between “like” and “interest”. When a person is interested in a work he/she is bound to put extra efforts by himself/herself. Employee engagement team can make the work interesting. Studies shows that engaged employees can increase the productivity upto 30%.

4) Just like there is a USP making a product or service different from competitors, every company has to have a USP for an employee to stay in a company.

5) Employees perform best when they are considered as employees and not juice extracting machine. Appraisal on their extra efforts taken and rewards matter alot to employees, being noticed, sense of belonging, growth and development etc are must.

Through employee engagement, employees feel the sense of responsibility for the work they do, this way they contribute towards the betterment in the tasks they perform and also feel motivated. but this should be done along with the appreciation by the middle level or top level management.