Employee Engagement is Key to Your Brand’s Success

It’s simple. To optimise your employer brand, your employees need to be engaged and happy. Why is this? Research by the Edelman Trust found that an employee’s voice is three times more credible than that of the CEO when discussing what it’s like to work for an organisation. So, when wanting to be an employer of choice and a great place to work, your employee engagement needs to be top-notch!

Just as you have an employer brand, whether you like it or not, the same applies to employee engagement. It’s just a case of how high the levels are that determines whether your people are engaged – or disengaged.

The ‘Four Enablers’ look at many of the key elements needed to create a culture that leads to engagement.

• Strategic Narrative – Empowering leadership provides a strong strategic narrative about the organisation, where it’s come from, and where it’s going. This enables the whole business to work towards the same goal and feel like a team when doing so.  
• Engaging and Motivating Managers – Management need to create an environment that provides focus and scope whilst also treating team members as individuals in order for them to stretch and be coached towards their goals.
• Employee Voice – People need to be encouraged to challenge and ask questions whilst also feeling as though their opinions really count.
• Organisational Integrity – Be sure to not just have your ‘values on the wall’, reflect them in day-to-day behaviors by making sure your values are explicit, understood and bought into.

The above Four Enablers are all very logical but for all the benefits employee engagement brings, we are seeing that levels aren’t currently that high. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workforce 2023, only 13% of Europe’s workforce feels engaged. 72% are not engaged and 15% are actively disengaged due to issues like ‘quiet quitting’ and losing touch with colleagues and the purpose of their roles since the pandemic.

These numbers are astounding and serve as a warning shot to employers, reminding you that tactics to engage your employees may have changed and it’s only in your best interest to iron these out.

So, how can your employer brand communicate positive employee engagement?

We covered earlier how important your people are when it comes to building trust with potential candidates. That’s why their thoughts on your culture, and the way they are developed and managed are so important. For example, the content on your careers page should show the projects that have engaged them, the way their ideas have been embraced and the projects that have enabled them to make a difference and why. Most employees will benefit from positive recognition, resulting in increased employee engagement which doesn’t only improve your employer brand but according to Gallup will result in 10% higher customer ratings and 18% higher revenue.

Employee engagement comes from a vote of confidence in your culture, values, the way the organisation is led, and the delivery of an employee’s experience that delivers on the promises made. And this alone is why any organisation will struggle to promote a strong employer brand without good levels of employee engagement. You can’t have one without the other!

If you would like any further advice on the importance of employer branding and employee engagement being key to this, please get in touch – our team will be more than happy to help.