Employee Engagement Types

Employee engagement types

Employee engagement is said to be driven by passion and the energy employees have to give their best to the organization. It is the willingness and ability of employees to demonstrate sustained efforts to help their organizations succeed. It is a psychological contract and not a physical one.

1.Cognitive Engagement

This includes the extent to which employees focus on their work tasks. An actively engaged employee is rarely distracted by small interruptions at work.

2. Actively Disengaged Employees:

This is the first category of employees, who are unhappy and angry and create unhappiness in the organization. Such employees are bad for the organization because they are always inciting other employees to quit their jobs and exit the organization. However, these employees stay in the firm longer and remove potential employees whom they think will achieve a higher status or move on to the next job level in the near future. They do this by removing potential candidates to advance in their jobs.

3. Engaged Employees:

Engaged employees are those who work with passion and are emotionally attached to the organization. They are innovative and provide new ideas to move the organization forward. Such employees are optimistic and spread positivity among colleagues. They personalize goals and objectives and always work for the betterment of the organization.

4. Not Engaged Employees:

This is the category in which most of the employees of the organization fall. These are those who seek directions from their superior and only do what they are asked to do. Such employees do not spend their time but their passion and energy in their work. They prefer to receive only one instruction at a time and they lack innovation. These employees may have a negative or positive attitude towards the organization.

Thus, an employee may fall into any of these categories based on their emotional attachment to the firm. Emotional attachment refers to the strong emotional bond an employee shares with the organization.

5. Emphasize progress

Big picture motivation and personal motivation are important, but they are not always enough to keep their employees engaged throughout the year.

Researchers Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer found that managers of high-performing teams have a consistent, daily focus on progress. When we are under stress or under pressure, it can be easy to focus on how far behind we are, or how much work is ahead of us. But according to research, it is only a waste of time. If you want your employees to maintain a winning momentum, then focus your attention on their strengths and accept every step they take in the right direction.

6. Upgrade your tools

On the subject of progress, it is worth noting that if employees take 20 minutes to boot their computers in the morning, they will feel like they have hit a wall before they log in. In order to make employees feel empowered to do their best work every day, seamless access to the right tools and information is required, or what experts refer to as "competent infrastructure". Take a look around your workplace. Do you need an upgrade?

The same goes for your software and system tools. Where are the hiccups? How can you make it as painless as possible for employees that they need the answers they need? Investing upfront to remove or replace red tape may involve, but it will certainly pay off in the long-term employee productivity.

7. Get real about recognition

Contrary to popular belief, recognition is not just about accepting top performers to hit the right sales targets (although you certainly should do so).

True recognition is an active appreciation for your employees, both professionally and personally. It is not just about knowing who has outnumbered their numbers in the last month, but also knowing whose child has just made the honour list. Despite Dale Carnegie's best advice, most leaders are too busy to stop and identify their employees, and most organizations are incredibly silent. Fill in the gaps between teams and departments and encourage your employees to really get to know each other. These scheduling can be as simple as a company-wide coffee break (as they do on Slack), or as sophisticated as creating an internal culture platform with devices such as bonfires.