Engaged workers drive success

Pichaya Changsorn

The Nation

While it is good if your employees are happy with the company and loyal to it,  what sets successful companies apart is the degree of employee engagement, executives at Hewitt Asso-ciates, a leading human resources company, said.

Ted Marusarz, Hewitt's global leader for engagement and knowledge management, said employee engagement was different from employee satisfaction in that there is a clear link between workers' behaviour and business results.

There are three types of behaviour  shown by engaged employees:

n Say - consistently speak positively about the organisation to colleagues, potential employees and customers.

n Stay - have an intense desire to be a member of the organisation despite opportunities to work elsewhere.

n Strive - exert extra time, effort and initiative to contribute to business success.

On the other hand, a disengaged employee, a Hewitt study in Asia

has found, costs companies an average of US$8,000 (Bt253,873) to $10,000 per year.

"When disengaged employees receive a telephone call from a customer at five minutes before 5pm, they tell the customer to call back the next day. Whereas an engaged employee who gets a call after 5pm will still receive the order. This is also true of quality. Engaged employees ensure the quality and the packaging is just right," Jo Reinhard, project manager for Hewitt's Best Employers in Asia project, said.

Marusarz said there were three costs related to employees: salary and benefits, which all companies measure; the cost of recruitment, retention, and training, which some companies measure; and the cost of employee disengagement, which very few companies measure.

Hewitt works with clients to help measure, improve and retain engagement, resulting in higher customer retention and profitability, he said.

Hewitt has found there are five common things that the best employers and engaged companies have:

n Clear commitment from the leaders to the employees: Workers feel the leader is interested in what they do and the leader has demonstrated that through actions.

n Employment pro-mise: Company must be able to deliver its promise and the expectations of the employee.

n High Performance Practice: Company must be able to identify which employees are average performers and which are strong performers and treat them accordingly. The strong performers must feel special, have access to leadership and be assigned special roles.

n Align HR practices with the company's strategies: For instance, if the business is an upscale restaurant, an employee may be rewarded for giving a customer a good experience, while a mid-scale restaurant may reward employees who provide fast service.

n Employees must know and understand the company's strategies.

Reinhard said about five to ten years ago pay used to be the most important factor  but now career has become the main contributor to employee engagement.

Marusarz said in any market, career opportunity is among the top three key drivers.

A Hewitt's Best Employee survey in 2005 found career opportunity was the most important driver in

25 per cent of Thai companies and

the figure could now be 50 to 60 per cent.

The Hewitt executives were visiting Thailand last week to prepare for the launch this July of the company's Best Employers in Asia 2009 project.