The Employee Engagement Task Force has launched its Engage for Success website, which includes case studies, research, tools and tips on how to better engage employees.
The website is a free-to-use national resource, which aims to help leaders and managers take practical action to engage their staff.
David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, co-chairs of the Employee Engagement Task Force, spoke about the website, and the task force’s latest plans, during the keynote address at Employee Benefits Live on 26 September.
MacLeod said: “The website has hints and tips around how to address employee engagement, and ideas to stimulate thinking.
“There is now very compelling evidence that this is about harnessing performance in the workplace for the benefit of the organisation.”
The website was formally launched on 12 November, along with the 2012 Kenexa High Performance Institute’s (KHPI) Annual global survey on employee engagement, which polled 33,000 full-time employees in 28 countries.
The research found:
- The UK public sector scored poorly for employee engagement (43%), compared to average public sector scores for the rest of the world (51%).
- India (77%) topped the employee engagement rankings in 2012, with the US, China, Canada and Australia all performing strongly.
- The UK (22nd out of 28, with a score of 49%), Russia, Germany and France had low-to-moderate scores, with Japan being the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed.
- UK employees who considered their leaders trustworthy had employee engagement index scores of 82%, as opposed to those who considered their leaders untrustworthy, who scored 13%.
- UK employees who considered themselves to have effective direct managers (a combination of task and people management) had an employee engagement index score of 75%, as opposed to 12% if line managers were felt to be ineffective.
Engage for Success is an independent, voluntary group of leaders, managers, trade unionists and experts who are backing the importance of employee engagement. The group was first launched by prime minister David Cameron in March 2011.
Cameron said: “Engage for Success is a movement that I helped launch last year to get UK workers more involved in the decision making of their companies and feel more passionate about their work.
“This meeting of leading companies and the publication of new evidence is an important step in achieving this and helping Britain to compete in the global race.”
The launch of the new website is the first stage in the Employee Engagement Task Force’s latest plans. “What we want to do is go on adding to it,” added MacLeod. “If people feel there is something they can contribute, please let us know and we will be regularly updating it.”
Watch a video interview of MacLeod speaking about the Employee Engagement Task Force’s plans.
Research published this week by the Engage for Success task force confirms what we have known for a long time – the key to long term business success is to engage employees and make them feel a valued and vital asset. If staff feel undervalued and are not given the opportunity to develop their skills, they will become unmotivated and disinterested in the business, with performance levels and productivity suffering as a result.
A business would not survive without driven individuals, so it is vital that organisations get the most out of their staff and give them an opportunity to hone their skills and progress up the career ladder. This investment in staff training and development will also foster company loyalty and a willingness to help the company succeed and grow.
It is encouraging that our own research of 500 CEOs across a range of industry sectors, has shown that they increasingly believe in the value of learning, with 93 per cent of business leaders planning to either maintain or increase their training budget over the next 12 months.
This is great news for the economy and demonstrates that even when budgets are tight, training and motivating employees still comes high up the agenda and is seen as key in the long term prosperity of the business.
We look forward to reading the task force findings in full and working with our clients to help them engage staff better to build strong and motivated teams.