Employee Engagement

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the process of involving employees in the efficient operation of the business, in particular with the WFM process. Done properly, employee engagement creates a win-win culture and reduces staff turnover. It is about giving employees visibility of their shifts and some control over their working times in return for working shifts that are optimized around demand and adhering to their schedules.

Why does employee engagement matter?

The most valuable - and costly - resource in your organization is not the technology, it’s the people. Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are rising trends but human beings will not be eliminated from businesses anytime soon, if ever. Employees who are disengaged will be demotivated and deliver a poor customer experience. They are more likely to have high levels of absenteeism. It’s more probable that they will leave the company, and staff turnover is both disruptive and costly. According to The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals, it costs between $10,000 and $20,000 to replace an employee.

How does employee engagement work?

Employee engagement requires a genuine dialog between the employee, management, and the planning team. WFM software acts as an enabler for engagement by providing a range of self-service functions. For example:

• Calendar: Visibility of the employee schedules, ideally for several weeks into the future. This predictability is a must-have for good work-life balance
• Team calendar: Visibility of the schedules of the employee’s team. This helps employees collaborate with colleagues who have expertise in particular areas. And maybe to join them for lunch
• Shift swaps: The ability to swaps shifts with colleagues, ideally with rapid or automatic approval. This boosts work-life balance for the employee and if proper controls are in place, there is no negative impact for the company
• Time off: The ability to book time off, ideally with rapid or automatic approval. Employees are often more interested in the days when they are not working than the days they are working. Employees love being able to check vacation balances and make time-off requests on a self-service basis. Time off requests are typically handled as part of the intraday management process.
• Shift bidding: Employees feel more in control of their working lives if they can state their preferences among multiple alternative shifts rather than being presented with shifts without consultation. Shift bidding can boost employee satisfaction, but obviously has implications for the scheduling process
• Availability preferences: Work-life balance is boosted if you allow employees to apply constraints on the hours they will be scheduled to work, for example, to cover a recurring medical appointment or education session. This creates extra administrative work in validating the requests and in negotiation with the employees and their team leader
• Notifications: Employees should receive reminders about upcoming activities, which help them to adhere to their schedules. If the schedules are integrated into the employees’ own calendars, they will receive reminders in the same way they get reminders of personal events, on their mobile devices

Employee engagement tips

1. Each of the self-service options boosts employee engagement but it isn’t necessary to implement all of them.
2. The planning team should not introduce an employee self-service function before coming to agreement with all the stakeholders, e.g. operational management, team leaders, and HR.
3. Several of the self-service features have negative consequences for schedule efficiency (workload fit) and some of them require additional admin effort. Choosing which to implement requires careful balancing of cost and benefit.
4. Realistically, none of the options is viable without a professional WFM application.

Engagement versus empowerment

Engagement is not the same thing as empowerment. Empowerment is about giving employees access to the information they need to do a great job - and the autonomy to do their job without having to escalate every non-standard situation to management. Both engagement and empowerment are essential to having a satisfied, productive and loyal workforce.

What impact does employee engagement have?

To quote a Tweet by the founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson:

“If you look after your staff well, they will look after your customers. Simple.”

The reverse is also true. Deploying best practice in employee engagement is an integral part of looking after staff. The result is happy employees and happy customers. It’s also good for the company, since employee engagement reduces costly staff turnover and has the potential to increase revenue.