Engagement is a relatively new way of thinking about leading people — a sort of magnetic rather than a coerced approach to getting people to want to do whatever is necessary to ensure the continuous high performance and success of the business.
As a philosophy of management, “engagement” centers on an individual’s degree of dedication to the organization and its goals with an implied reward of self-actualization or personal growth. The assumption in the business world is that engagement level predicts the positive intensity and quality of effort the organization can expect from an individual within job confines. In this regard, engagement’s value to the business is a predictor of future behavior and effort.
Business leaders should care about employee engagement because, when correctly measured, engagement profiles provide management with a statistical method to maximize return on human capital. For example, our studies show that positively engaged employees have higher than average individual productivity and innovation events plus they remain with the company longer than disengaged employees. In addition, the discretionary efforts of the fully engaged are of higher quality and of a more positive intensity than other less-engaged employees: their economic contributions to the business consistently exceed their employment costs. From a quality of work life perspective, positively engaged employees are energetic and enthusiastic which makes them more productive in group efforts and makes them a pleasure to work with...oh, fully engaged employees also solve problems.
