Employee engagement generally doesn’t belong to one person in an organization. It’s often a team effort, comprised of the 3 groups mentioned in the previous section.
Managers, HR and individual employees each play an important role in promoting engagement.
According to Gallup; employee engagement part of a manager’s job because Gallup finds that 70% of the variance in a team’s engagement is related to their management. Managers create the conditions that promote the behaviors of engaged employees (or just the opposite) with the relationships they establish. The manager is either an engagement-creating coach or an engagement-destroying boss, but both relationships affect employee behavior.
HR plays a vital role in enabling engagement by shaping the general policy and influencing the company culture. HR needs to set the systems and framework for gathering employee feedback, pick the right HR tools and software for monitoring and measuring engagement, and support managers and leaders in any engagement-related matters.
Some researchers and practitioners believe that individuals are responsible for their own engagement. To a degree, being engaged is a choice.
We believe there isn’t one right way to determine who is responsible.
Each member of your company has important responsibilities, and if your organization is going to commit and truly make engagement a priority, everyone needs to buy in and do their part.
Because, employee engagement is a team effort.
- Without CEO sponsorship and support the chances are the program will not embed deep enough into the company.
- Without the Leadership team ensuring global alignment and local support across the teams you will end up with uneven delivery and success.
- Without manager buy-in you will not have partners to work with you on making everyone aware of the program and having it delivered at a local level.
- And without employees being engaged with the program you will not engage them with the business.