Employee engagement critical to recession survival

Better employee engagement could do more for the success of UK businesses “than almost anything else” according to a new report by David MacLeod.



MacLeod writes that harnessing the full potential of employees would be crucial for surviving the recession and making the most of the upturn and that engagement was not simply about a survey, as many employers thought, but a “way of managing and thinking about people as human beings, not just human resources”.

According to CIPD research, only a third of British workers are fully engaged at work. The institute’s director of HR capability, Stephanie Bird, backed the report’s recommendations. “This report puts engagement where it properly belongs: at the heart of business performance. HR professionals will see this report as an endorsement of what many of them are already doing, as well as a stimulus to do more,”.

Well what a shock folks, happy employees = performing employees. I welcome this report as it gets people issues back in the news. However, I do find the endless regurgitation of this type of thing really annoying. Of course organisations want engaged people - so get on with it.

For more information on the report and for some thoughts on how to engage employees I suggest Jon Ingham's article on the subject. The report itself and some video of the author can be found here.