Given the widespread challenges of hiring and retaining talent, it’s no surprise that leaders are taking a harder look at how to engage their people.

It’s likely we have all seen the data indicating that increasing employee engagement is a good thing:

• Gallup: Only 33% of American employees are engaged at work (as of this post), and the 67% not engaged costs the nation over $500 billion per year in lost productivity
• Towers Perrin: Companies with engaged employees have higher net profit margins
• Kenexa Research: Engaged companies have 5 times higher shareholder returns over 5 years

Possibly of greater importance are some of the additional documented positive benefits of engaged workers, which include lower turnover, better safety, fewer product defects and shrinkage, reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, and better customer satisfaction metrics.

The key question, of course, is how to best go about it!

Gallup offers a wide range of research on the subject, and The Enterprise Engagement Alliance provides many free resources, tools, and advice that could be of use.

In addition, our white paper “Engagement Around the Work” might also provide some good insights into going beyond “engagement for engagement’s sake” and give you a straightforward process, guidelines, and clear targets for leveraging the relationship between engagement and productivity.