A national Engagement Capability Survey of 900 organisations in Australia and New Zealand by AltusQ, in collaboration with corporate gifting company,  RedBalloon, found that investment that focuses on raising the level of engagement in an organisation is not just something which is a “nice to have to create happier places for people to work,” but actually has a more profound impact on the performance of a business.

The findings of the survey, which was conducted for the second year running, were jointly presented in Brisbane by PRA and business coaching firm, AltusQ.  

AltusQ business coach, Sonya Trau, said the survey aimed to provoke, inform and align HR professionals with their executive teams in order to “focus resources towards the things that the data suggests makes the biggest impact on both engagement and organisational outcomes.”

According to PRA Brisbane Director, Mary E. Clark, as the economic climate in Australia and New Zealand continues to be destabilised by events in Europe,  Asia and the Americas there is “more pressure than ever before on organisations to deliver a secure, positive and engaging environment in which their employees and bottom lines are able to thrive.”

Clark said that, on average, highly engaged organisations were up to twenty times as likely to see increases or improvements in customer satisfaction, attraction of key talent, productivity, customer loyalty, turnover and profit than those with a lower engagement score.”

“One of the most important things that I’ve learned to remember in regards to employee engagement is very simple: what gets measured gets managed!”

And, according to Trau, “employees deliver when their environment gives them the space to flourish,” and she says that organisations should “capture the heads and hearts of their employees.”

“Employee engagement is largely the result of internal rather than external variables. The difference between good and great levels of engagement lies in the skills of people managers to not just implement policy, programs and initiative, but to take full ownership for them being lived by the whole organisation.”

“From a general standpoint, the biggest opportunity for improvement lies in increasing your engagement capability in the areas of brand, vision and purpose, communication, managing capacity & workload, expectation management, coaching, reward & recognition and effective meetings.”