Employee Engagement

​The employee journey and employee engagement are something we’re all going to be hearing more about over the coming months and years.  That’s because of the ‘war on talent,’ as it’s often known.  Otherwise known to us in the Hertfordshire area as #how-on-earth-do-I-fill-my-vacancies-when-there-is-such-low-unemployment-and-no-one-is-applying!
Difficulty with recruitment must be the number one bug-bear for companies in the Dacorum area.  And even if you can find someone and fill your vacancy, how do you ensure they stay with you?  There are several answers to the recruitment conundrum and the one I want to focus on this month, is employee engagement.
Companies with more than 250 UK based employees now have to include a statement about employee engagement in their annual reports.  If you’re interested in the legal bit, this is covered under the Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018.  The Regulations specify that the directors’ report must have a statement summarising how directors have engaged with employees and taken account of their interests during the year. It must also describe the action by the company taken during the financial year to introduce, maintain or develop arrangements aimed at:

• providing employees systemically with information on matters of concern to them as employees;
• consulting employees or their representatives on a regular basis so that the employees’ views can be taken into account in making decisions which are likely to affect their interests;
• encouraging employee involvement in the company’s performance by an employees’ share scheme or other means; and
• achieving common employee awareness of the financial and economic factors affecting the company’s performance.

You might be reading this and thinking – phew, my business employs less than 250 people, thank goodness I don’t have to worry about it.  However, I’d like to suggest that even if you are a small or micro business, employee engagement should be a priority regardless of the shape, size or sector you operate in.  That’s because, as it becomes increasingly difficult to attract and retain the right people for your company, so it becomes more important to make sure that the employee experience is a positive one.  Research tells us that customer experience is a direct result of employee experience:  companies that excel at customer experience have 1.5 times more engaged employees than companies with a record of poor customer experience.
In other words, your staff engagement directly feeds into your customers’ experience, which directly links to your company turnover – it makes good sense to look after your staff.  Or as someone once said, “If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple.” (Richard Branson)

And it goes without saying, if you need help reviewing your staff engagement and developing a plan to improve things – I’m here to help!

Ruth George - HR Consultant
ruth@ruthgeorge.com; 07899 920075
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This is not legal advice and is provided for general information only. © Ruth George HR Consulting.