Keeping the Ship Steady – Why Employee Engagement is Vital

Now that restrictions have eased and companies are moving back towards standard operations, many businesses are taking stock of what they have learned and are using it to work out how to keep their teams happy. Employee engagement is a key part of this process and gathering information on how people feel and what they need to succeed is essential when trying to retain a full Life Science team.  

What Does Employee Engagement Look Like? 

The term ‘employee engagement’ is pretty self-explanatory but knowing how to define whether an employee is engaged or not can be more difficult. Take a look at the differing levels of engagement and disengagement to get an idea of how employee engagement can be impacting your business: 

  • If an employee is engaged, they will feel interested and willing to do their work, even displaying excitement when asked about how they feel. This type of employee will be willing to do what it takes to help your business reach its goals and won’t shy away from innovation and challenge. 
  • If an employee is unengaged, they will struggle to achieve any more than the bare minimum, no matter what work they are given to complete. These employees can be summed up as being there to get paid and no more. 
  • If an employee is actively disengaged, they will feel unfulfilled and even angry that they are in a role that does not satisfy them. In addition to their feelings of unhappiness, actively disengaged employees can harm your business by not completing tasks, offering a poor quality of work, and sharing their feelings with others – impacting your reputation. 

Worryingly, research has shown that only around 13% of employees in each business are actively engaged in work, meaning that 87% are either unengaged or actively disengaged! When you think about this in terms of Life Science, it can mean slower innovation, reduced solutions to global problems, and the potential to miss breakthroughs if someone isn’t looking for them hard enough! 

Resolving the Employee Engagement Conundrum 

Sadly, there is no quick fix to resolving the engagement issue and companies need to come up with an organization-specific plan to manage the situation. There are some common steps that each company can take, including: 

  • Acknowledging the issue and sharing this with the entire workforce. If a management team is willing to accept that people may be struggling with engagement, the team will feel more supported to change. 
  • Surveying the team to find out how they feel. Employee surveys can often produce responses that managers struggle to hear but to get to the root of the problem, you have to understand how a team really feels. 
  • Share the findings – an employee survey should never be hidden from the workforce. Once you have analyzed what the main themes and problems are, you should then publish it for the workforce to see. 
  • Think about solutions – with all the concerns aired, it’s time to find solutions. Again, this should not be done in silos, each employee should have some input into suggested solutions to find the best way forward together.

    Getting Recruitment Right 

    No matter what changes an organization makes, there will always be some people that are more engaged than others. The trick to getting the right people in post is ensuring that your recruitment process has been honed to what you need. If you are looking for recruitment support and guidance then the team at GeneCoda® has what you need. With Life Science specific expertise, we can help you to build a team that wants to achieve the best – connect with us today to find out more. 

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