As the economy continues its slow recovery after the recession, new research suggests that business leaders have identified better employee engagement as a key to future growth. This was the unanimous verdict of 150 CEOs and HR Directors from companies with over one million employees polled for a business leaders’ conference hosted by engagement survey specialist ETS.

This increased focus on the level of engagement among employees has undoubtedly led to increased investment in engagement surveys by major businesses. A recent study shows that 70% of large private-sector companies have carried out an engagement survey within the last year. Engagement surveys allow employers to measure staff engagement and to identify actions they can take to increase it.

Experts split employee engagement into three dimensions: emotional engagement – being very involved emotionally with one’s work; cognitive engagement – focusing very hard while at work; and physical engagement – being willing to ‘go the extra mile’ for your employer.

A study commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) showed that around three in 10 people are genuinely engaged with their work. This is clearly quite a low figure and shows that employers have a collective responsibility to improve on this in order to drive sustainable economic growth. Unsurprisingly, the study found that there is a strong correlation between employees who are happy with their work-like balance and their engagement with their jobs.

A few interesting outputs from the CIPD research were that women tend to be more engaged with their work than men and that older employees – over 35 years of age – generally show higher levels of engagement than younger employees. Two in five over 35s report being engaged with their work compared to a quarter of under 35s. It was also found that almost half of employees in managerial positions are engaged with work compared to around three in 10 non-managers.

Dominic Wake, Director at HR consultancy ETS, comments: "In our experience running engagement surveys with large corporate organisations, we have noted a common pattern in length of service and engagement. It is typical for employees to be highly engaged for the first few years with a company, before this decreases. Long-serving employees – over 8 or 10 years – tend to be more engaged as they will generally have more ‘invested’ in the organisation by this point. It could be that they have shares or a pension scheme with the company."

In examining the factors that influence engagement, occupational psychologists advocate the need to identify the ‘key drivers’ that are responsible for driving engagement. The most significant three drivers of engagement are said to be:

• Having opportunities to feed your views upwards – such as in an engagement survey
• Feeling well informed about what is happening in the organisation
• Thinking that your manager is committed to your organisation

There are variations on key drivers and some will be unique to the organisational context. Upon identifying the key drivers for a particular organisation, the next step is to measure these to see how employees feel.  And to do this, business leaders are routinely choosing to run an engagement survey. The majority of companies surveyed by ETS report that they run an engagement survey annually although for some,  this takes place every other year.

With the economic recovery now underway – albeit slowly – there is plenty of evidence to suggest that business leaders are prioritising employee engagement and are investing in things like engagement surveys.

David Macleod, co-author of the Department for Business report ‘Engaging for Success’ which highlights that companies must engage their employees to boost growth, comments: "This is about unleashing the potential of people at work and enabling them to be the best they can be... engagement is a key to innovation and competitiveness."

Employee engagement is a goal for businesses of all sizes since it has been proven that engaged staff voluntarily work longer and harder than others and are more loyal. While engagement and profits are known to be related, 99% of those surveyed by ETS believe firmly that greater engagement triggers greater company performance and not the other way round. Many organisations have evidence that engagement leads to happier customers, higher sales and lower employee turnover.

Furthermore, the ‘employer brand’ proposition is another top priority for executives at present given the widespread shortages of skilled workers and this has compounded the urgent need to focus on employee engagement. Previous studies have clearly shown that engaged employees are more likely to act as organisational advocates than disengaged employees and are therefore likely to have a powerful role to play as an advocate in promoting their organisation as an employer of choice.

Dominic Wake, Director at HR consultancy ETS, concludes by saying: "There are plenty of positives to take from the research. It’s clear that companies are taking action to address employee engagement – including running engagement surveys. This will help them to understand employees better in order to motivate them. The majority of businesses say they are increasing communication, with a focus on having more visible leaders to explain the strategy, which will inevitably help employees understand how they contribute and what they are working towards. And other companies reveal that are implementing new appraisal systems."