35 HR Experts Reveal the Drivers of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is not only the happiness and the satisfaction of the employees but also an emotional investment of them in the company. It is a workplace where employees are committed to the enterprise.

In today’s fast-moving world, some or the other, employees are finding difficulties to cope up with the enterprise. Many enterprises also make sure that the employees are given more and more facilities to be able to work in a pleasant environment.

Employee engagement also understands the endeavor and also demonstrate the qualitative and quantitative essence of the connection between the enterprise and its employees. See what experts have to say about their employee engagement strategies.

So, to understand it in a better way, we asked 35 industry experts across the globe about the drivers of employee engagement in 2019. These experts include a range of CEOs, CXOs, CHROs, HR consultants, speakers, and authors.

Here is a list of employee engagement drivers from the horse’s mouth themselves:

1. John Baldoni, President, Baldoni Consulting LLC

John Baldoni, an internationally recognized leadership expert who was ranked No.26 in Global Gurus list of the global leadership experts in 2018, a list John been on since 2007. According to his statement, the driver of employee engagement is to get involved with all the employees, knowing from the employees that are they willing to do the work rather than forcing them to do.

2. David Ducheyne, President, hrpro.be

David Ducheyne, an inspiring keynote speaker, with 25 years of experience in strategic HR and business. Apart from his consultancy work, he also has international experience with Henkel, Alcatel, Case New Holland, Securex, and Ghent University. When asked about the drivers of employee engagement he said that the leaders need to create a context in which engagement is possible. The first output of leadership should be trust and then meaningfulness. Meaningfulness creates direction, trust creates safety. Leaders, create the best conditions for people to be motivated and engaged.

In a brief he said,

“It’s about leadership, culture and people strategies”.

3. Bob Kelleher, President, and Founder, The Employee Engagement Group

Bob Kelleher, a frequent guest writer and a contributing editor on many national publications and can be seen or heard on national media like CNBC, NBC News, Forbes, Fortune, etc. He is also a best selling author, a keynote speaker all over the globe.

He is the President and Founder of The Employee Engagement Group which is a consulting firm working with leadership teams to enhance their leadership and employee engagement effectiveness.

When asked about the drivers of employee engagement, he explained in this way,

 “I just gave a keynote presentation called, Empathy is the New Black. Studies show that a lack of Trust is the #1 driver of disengagement, and the number one ways leaders demonstrate trust is to show empathy and care for their employees”.

4. Dr.Robin Kiera, Founder, Digitalscouting

Being the founder of Digitalscouting, he explains that, if there is a leader who is setting an example of motivation, dedication, and engagement, providing a vision and a goal to achieve and a roadmap how to achieve the goal of the enterprise, most will follow and exceed expectations.

Here’s what Dr.Robin says,

“ Every person is different. I had colleagues with almost no formal education or no experience contributing crucially to results that board members defined as a miracle. The engagement of employees is one of the keys to the success of a company”.

5. Jill Christensen, Employee Engagement Expert, Jill Christensen International

According to the expert, who was named a top 100 Global Employee Engagement Influencer in 2017, Jill explains the employees’ basic human needs and also focuses on four key areas while developing a strategic plan,

 

1. Get the Right Person in Every Chair

2. Create a Line of Sight (Goal Alignment)

3. Build a Two-Way Communication Culture

4. Recognize People.

She explicates,

“ From my experience, the strategy to re-engage employees is not difficult nor is it rocket science – it’s basic.”

6. Henry Stewart, Founder, and Chief Happiness Officer, Happy Ltd

Being Chief Happiness Officer of London-based learning business, Henry illustrates that an enterprise needs people who know they make a difference and know they are able to act, to help a colleague or support a customer – without waiting for an approval form the enterprise. He further explains that “If you want your organization to respond quickly and flexibly, you need a few restrictive policies and procedures and as much trust as possible”.

7. Aaron Tucker, Managing Director, motivationWorks

Mr.Aaron Tucker, Managing Director of motivationWorks, who is also a recognized expert in leadership and employee experience, highlights the three main drivers or core precepts of Employees Engagement as ‘autonomy, relatedness, and mastery’.

He further explains those three drivers as;

 Autonomy – It is the need we all innately have to feel that we are the author of our lives. That we endorse the path we are on as we move through our day, tackling tasks and striving towards goals that we believe in.

Relatedness –It is our need to build relationships in which we care for others, and are cared for in return.

 Mastery – It is the need to feel successful in what we are doing day to day and moment to moment in the tasks we tackle.

8. Darryl Dioso, Founder and Managing Partner, Resource Management Solutions Group

Having specialization in Sales, Marketing, I.T., and Supply Chain roles, Darryl believes that Training and Development, employee surveys, appreciation events, customer feedback has to be done in order to know about the drivers of employees engagement. He himself is very passionate about sales, business, technology, sports, travel and most of all he is more connected to his family.

9. Janine N.Truitt, Chief Innovations Officer, Talent Think Innovations, LLC

A globally-known figure, a dynamic speaker, and a well-known entrepreneur, Janine N.Truitt, who is also the founder and Chief Blogger at ’The Aristocracy of HR’, tells us that the average tenure for employees these days is 3-5 years in an organization. This shift means organizations have to focus on coaxing the best from their employees. Janine as a Chief Innovations Officer finds that there is a huge probability of jumbling up the professional and personal life of an employee.

When asked about the Employees Engagement, She demonstrated in this way;

“Companies who want to succeed at employee engagement will study and understand where work and life intersect for their employees while also trying to ease pain points/barriers that could prevent employees from fully showing up at work”.

10. Guy Ellis, Director, Courageous Workplaces Limited

After graduating from New Zealand, Mr.Guy Ellis moved to the United Kingdom where he worked in HR for a number of global blue-chip organizations. Being the Director of Courageous Workplaces Limited, he describes that effective drivers can significantly vary between the organizations, industries, countries, etc.

When we asked him about the Employees Engagement, He said;

“ However, my first point of call for most organizations would be line managers – they have a disproportionate impact on employee productivity and giving them the basic skills to manage employees is never money wasted”.

11. Perry Timms, Founder and Chief Energy Officer, PTHR, People & Transformational HR Ltd.

The global leader and famous TEDx speaker, when asked about the drivers of employees engagement, said that “ In pursuit of a competitive edge, this area has delivered data that helped to build a case for the best possible experience in purchasing and consuming our goods and services”.

He further continues by saying that “The advent of employee experience has given us a frame of reference to think more about the way people feel about their work beyond the exchange of labor and creativity for money.”

12. Dave Millner, Founder and Consulting Partner, HR CURATOR LTD

Dave Millner, widely known as the HR Curator has a different way to see the drivers of employees engagement. After effective research on this topic, he came to the conclusion that there any many key sets of elements across different cultures and different levels of employees. Those key elements are as follows;

• The future of the organization: employees want to be connected to where the organization is going, feel a part of it and feel excited and motivated about what it means for them.

• Recognition: employees what to be valued, appreciated and recognized for what they bring to the organization.

• Trust in leadership: employees want to trust the leaders of the organization and their business function.

• Communication: employees want to be able to have open and honest two-way communication and dialogue.

• Support and inclusion: employees want to feel part of a team, feel supported when needed and that their ideas and suggestions are important to the organization.

• Growth and improvement: employees want to have opportunities to learn/improve and progress.

Dave works with large global clients on their engagement programs and has a real passion regarding the transformation of HR functions.

13. Rajesh Padmanabhan, Director & Group CHRO, Welspun Group

Rajesh Padmanabhan says that in today’s world, a lot of focus is been given to maintain the environment at the workplace.

According to Mr.Padmanabhan, there are few important drivers in today’s context which will help organizations to maintain the engaging territory. In today’s context, few important drivers are:

– Strong Leadership

– Transparency

– Recognize employees efforts

– Pay as per performance

– Relationship with co-workers 

– Inclusive and employee friendly Policies

14. Amber Lloyd, VP HCM Business Development and Sales Strategy at Oracle

Having 25+ years of experience in designing, developing, implementing and supporting Enterprise Employee Portal, Amber got a clear idea about employees generation and their ideal work environment. According to her, some employees do the work just to fulfill the demands of their family members, by working on projects or by just being recognized for the key contributions.

To provide the right factors to the employees accordingly, she adds;

“ Regardless of an employee’s generation, I believe it’s offering a personalized experience to each employee, having the flexibility to support the needs of that employee”.

15. Brad Federman, Chief Operating Officer, F&H Solutions Group

Brad has more than 25 years of corporate experience in various aspects of human resources which include performance management, employees engagement, etc., Brad highlights the main drivers of employees engagement as CAREER and SKILL DEVELOPMENT.  The employees should know their improvement in their skills over the last years and they need to feel that they are more merchantable in the job market. And the second driver is APPRECIATION, he says that the employees do not want to get recognized but they want to get appreciated. This is the area where most of the organization fall short.

16. Gordon Tredgold, CEO & Founder, Leadership Principles LLC

A businessman and an IT transformation expert who successfully runs $300 departments for Fortune 100 companies.

When we asked him about the employees engagement drivers, he said;

“ Sense of purpose, connection with the leader and the company, the opportunity to be successful. A feeling of being cared for and important to the company”.

17. Siobhan McHale, Head of Human Resources, Dulux Group

After walking into hundreds of different work environments, Siobhan reveals that many places were filled with dread, slavery, etc whereas some places were filled with passionate people, hardworking, etc.

After analyzing it, Siobhan came to the conclusion that “the biggest factor in creating a high level of engagement in these workplaces is leadership”.

She also explains;

“These disengaged cultures drained the energy from employees and left customers feeling frustrated with lackluster service. Other companies I walked into had a high performing and productive cultures. These places brought out the best in their employees and delivered outstanding service to customers. They were forces for good (not greed) in their communities”.

18. Micky Chopra, Chief Talent Officer, ONE Business Consulting Group

According to Micky, a passionate leader and strategic thinker who has experience in strategy planning, directing various human capital management initiatives, Leadership is about action, not a position. Leaders who are trustworthy, they are realistic and relevant to create an engaged culture in an organization.

He explains;

“ No engagement is successful if the intent and context are not clear to every stakeholder”.

19. Richard Maloney, Founder & CEO, Engage and Grow Global

As the world’s most noted employee engagement and leadership expert, Mr. Richard has been focusing on helping businesses to improve their wellbeing, culture, engagement, and leadership.

When asked about the drivers of employee engagement; he replied in this way;

“The first thing is we need to mend those relationships we need to show people they are not alone and they are all craving the same thing. They need to realize that they are so much stronger when they work together and they can accomplish more than simply the sum of their actions put together”.

20. Kris Duggan, Former CEO, BetterWorks

A technology investor and a serial entrepreneur for more than 2 decades, he says the best way to capture is regular pulsing and having clear goals. By capturing quick sentiment inputs from a team member which will help the company and the manager to triangulate how well the employee is doing, we get to know about the abilities of regular pulsing.

Kris adds more;

“ Goal setting drives the ability to make sure the employee knows what is expected of them, and lets them know how their goals contribute to the bigger picture objectives of the company”.

21. Steve Cadigan, Founder, Cadigan Talent Ventures

As a founder of his own silicon valley based firm, Steve believes that infusing in employees will help the organization to drive engagement. He also added, What employees want is to know that nevertheless of what happens while they are here, they are going to learn, and finally going to grow.

When asked about, how they drive engagement, he replies;

“You don’t drive it by promising safety and security. You drive it by being authentic, by being real, and by helping people know that you are going to invest in their development more than anyone else”.

As an advisor to the famous international companies such as Twitter, Google, etc, he finds that the most important thing to drive the engagement by investing in having a listening strategy, hearing what’s in people’s mind and trying to understand them and helping them to steer this demented world.

22. Ben Whitter, Founder & CEO, World Employee Experience Institute (WEEI)

World’s ‘Mr. Employee Experience’, and the Founder of WEEI, says that the only driver of employees engagement is  Experience. He says experience is everything. Through the experience in an enterprise, the employees have a practical contact with the projects and the events of their enterprise.

He explains about the drives of employees engagement in this way;

“ Establishing and or elevating a long-term focus on the ‘experience’ of work for employees is critical to defining, designing, and delivering human-centered and high performing workplaces”.

Mr. Ben operates globally at the forefront of the employee experience movement.

23. Matt Charney, Chief Content Officer at Allegis Global Solutions & Executive Editor at Recruiting Daily

The Chief Content Officer, when asked about the drivers of employees engagement he mentioned that the key element of engagement is ‘Trust’.  When workers are able to link their individual efforts to the collective outcome then they are much more likely to find their work fulfilling and satisfactory, which will in-turn helps to build the engagement in the enterprise.

“ When employees are given the choice of when and how work gets done, then you’re creating a sense of ownership and shared responsibility that’s critical for engagement.”

24. David Zinger, Employee Engagement Speaker, Educator, & Consultant

A global Employee Engagement speaker, views employee engagement as daily actions and interactions with the employees to help and create an environment for full engagement.

When asked about drivers of Employees engagement, this is what he said;

“I am not comfortable with the word drivers in engagement. It makes engagement sound mechanical or under someone else’s control. Engagement is not something we do to people it is their connection to their work, their organization, others, etc”.

25. Carmen (Shirkey) Collins, Social Media Lead, Talent Brand, Cisco

Carmen believes in giving opportunities to the employees to share the ‘moments that matters’ to them. When the employees share their opinions through social media then they find it much professional as they have authenticated voice to present their matters.

She helps the employees to present their matters at WeAreCisco to a new audience outside their networks.

26. Nigel Paine, Owner, nigelpaine.com

More than 25 years of experience in Corporate Learning, Nigel finds that engaged employees are much more willing to embrace change. They have a bigger stake in the future of the organization and also cares about its success.

When asked about the engaged employees and disengaged employees he explained it in this way;

“If you want a simple metaphor, then engaged employees pull together and the combined force of that effort is very powerful. Disengaged employees, in badly run organizations, pull in different directions and tend to neutralize each other”.

27. Robin Elledge, President, Janus Coaching + Consulting

After spending 30 years in honing her skills as a respected business leader, Robin finds that the employee engagement is becoming a very much important factor in the world of AI. More than an employee there is a personal connection between the employees which will make the difference. Knowing your employees is more important, knowing what they do, are they satisfied with their work or not, what values and expectations they have. Giving them as much ownership and involvement as they want.

28. Rattan Chugh, Chief People Officer, Times Internet

Having the experience of giving advice to the leading companies, Mr.Rattan believes that giving an individual contribution of the employees will make a real difference in the organization.

Here’s what Mr.Rattan says about the drivers of employees engagement;

“Give enough autonomy and opportunity to grow. Clearly articulate how success looks like and how performance will be measured”.

29. Bruce Bolger, President, The Enterprise Engagement Alliance

With more than 25 years of experience in rewards, recognition, and engagement, Mr.Bruce is a frequent speaker on topics related to engagement and provides consulting on implementation to corporate practitioners and engagement solution providers.

When we asked the speaker about the drivers of employees engagement and he said that it is a sense of mission and purpose both, empowerment and the flexibility that comes with it, a sense of task value and also that the work and the contribution of the employee are always honored.

30. Adam Gordon, Co-founder, and CEO, Candidate.ID

Adam Gordon is co-founder and CEO of talent pipeline automation company Candidate.ID. He always enjoys by telling people why he thinks most employers fail in recruitment.

When we asked him about the employees engagement, he replies in this way

“If people know their employer’s mission and the part they should play in that mission, they will be engaged”.

31. Dr. Tasha Eurich, Principal, The Eurich Group

The Principal of The Eurich Group feels that employees always needs only three things 

1. To be respected

2. To be valued

3. And heard by the people around them.

She feels that these three things are getting more and more important because the world is moving very fast these days.

32. Ruth Dance, Managing Director, The Employee Engagement Alliance

Managing director of The EEA gives the opinion when asked about the drivers of employees engagement that, “ I don’t think there are specific drivers or whether it is even possible to ‘drive’ engagement at all”.

She also says that;

“Engagement is personal, relevant and timely. It’s something that’s designed by your people, for your people and should be lived and reviewed daily”.

As there are many fantastic organizations seeing great success from the initiatives they have taken to engage their employees. But as she mentioned earlier each one is personal, relevant and timely.

33. Paul Hebert, Senior Director of Solutions Architecture, Creative Group, Inc.

When we asked the expert about his views on drivers of employees engagement he said that only one factor which he thinks is ‘validation’.

Some call it as recognition, but for Paul it is validation. He explains that each and every person wants to get recognized in the enterprise as unique and special. People always want to believe that they are contributing to and making the world better. The best thing which can be done in an organization to engage employees is ‘communication’ with them at the workplace and about the work output.  

34. Gregory F Simpson, Managing Director, Agent In Engagement

The first and the foremost thing which Gregory suggests is to address the employee-manager relationship. Getting the right people in management roles would go a long way toward improving employee engagement, keeping in mind that if there is any lack of managerial skills in the enterprise then the company has to replace the person with the effective one.

The experience of the employees has the opportunity to engage or disengage an employee or group of employees. The company needs to identify the different ways in which they can reduce bureaucracy and reinforce purpose.

He further adds;

“Employee engagement is the outcome. A better way to think about it is to focus on the employee experience across the employee lifecycle”.

35. Irene Becker, Chief Success Officer, Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge (IQ-EQ-SQ)

Irene Becker, Chief Success Officer believes that Purpose equals Profit. The most important driver is that employees must feel that they are a part of a well-known organization and their work is meaningful and valuable for the company.

To give the best training to the managers so as they can be the better coaches for the employees of the organization.

1. Helping the employees to enlarge their skills and talents by getting proper learning.
2. By giving the Opportunities to the employees to help them grow in their roles.
3. By helping the employees to develop their cognitive and emotional dexterity.

Take Away

So, what do you conclude after reading it?

The HR specialists gave their views on the drivers of employees engagement, from which we can conclude that there are many drivers which will help employees to be engaged.

YES! It has been seen that even the globally known leading experts are also facing many complications to achieve employee engagement.

But yeah, we can conclude that following are the major drivers of engagement:

1. Recognition
2. Trust
3. Leadership
4. Appreciation

As you all have read the above four pretty much strongly from most of the known experts.

Finally, I would like to wrap up by saying that the Employees are the Gems of the Organisation.

Beyond everything, As Jim Collins says; “Great Vision without Great People is Irrelevant”.

So what do you think? Let’s keep the debate going.

Please lets us know if you found this post valuable. Also, we would love to hear your ideas and your opinion on this subject.