What is employee engagement?

Understanding this newer role is easier with a clear definition of employee engagement. An employee is engaged when they feel connected with and enthusiastic about their work. When they feel valued and recognized by the organization, they generally have a positive attitude about the workplace. Engaged employees are committed to their work and their teams.

What is an employee engagement manager?

Employment engagement managers work to create a more connected employee experience for staff. Collaborating with multiple departments and staff members, they identify ways to make employees feel valued and engaged in the work they’re doing. They implement a variety of strategies to achieve those goals.

Duties of an employment engagement manager

An employment engagement manager carries out specific duties to achieve greater employee engagement. Common duties for this position include:

• Talent acquisition: The person in this role is often involved in the hiring process to improve hiring decisions, which can also improve employee retention.

• Onboarding: A smooth onboarding process can improve the overall employee experience and get new hires engaged from the beginning. An employee engagement manager might craft the onboarding process to make it more effective.

• Feedback management: Listening to feedback from employees can help improve their experiences. A people engagement manager creates engagement questions for surveys, conducts surveys and reviews all types of feedback from employees to make positive changes.

• Training: Educational opportunities help employees gain new skills and take on extra challenges at work, which can make their job more rewarding. Your engagement manager can expand your learning opportunities to make them more appealing to your staff.

• Metrics: A people engagement manager tracks several metrics, such as employee retention, satisfaction and productivity, to help evaluate engagement. They collect and assess those numbers to identify areas of improvement.

• Program selection: Having someone in charge of employee satisfaction means you have a go-to person to create and manage your engagement programs, such as employee recognition.

• Activity planning: This person might also plan team-building opportunities and other activities to improve engagement.

6 benefits of a people engagement manager

Some of the potential benefits of hiring an employment engagement manager include:

1. Employee-focusedworkplace

An employment engagement manager helps you move toward an employee-focused environment, which means you prioritize the well-being of your staff. This can increase how much effort your employees put into their work, improve retention and attract new job seekers. Employees are also likely to have better mental health and improved well-being, which can cut down on absenteeism.

2.Increased diversity

Part of this role is to improve workplace diversity for your organization. Increasing diversity can create a more inclusive environment, which improves your reputation within the community. An employment engagement manager helps amplify diverse voices and might improve innovation by bringing in new perspectives and ideas.

3. Improved productivity

Happy and connected employees are more likely to work harder. You could see an improvement in productivity and the quality of the work your team produces. Higher productivity and quality lead to better customer satisfaction and increased profits for your company.

4. Betteremployee retention

Many people appreciate a company that values them and makes efforts to keep them happy. By investing in a people engagement manager, you could improve your employee retention rates. Holding onto your employees longer helps keep your operations consistent with higher productivity. It also saves you money on hiring and training costs since you won’t have to replace employees as often.

5. Go-to expertin employee engagement

Your organization can stay on the cutting edge of employee engagement strategies when you have a specialized position. They keep up with the latest trends and can research new options to continue improving your results. Your managers and other team members have a resource who can help if they notice issues within their teams.

6. Better use of time

If your HR team currently shares the responsibility of employee engagement, hiring an employment engagement manager can free them up to focus on their other duties. That can make everyone’s work more effective. Your other HR employees aren’t being pulled in different directions, and your employee engagement manager can focus solely on improving the employee experience.

Does your company need one?

Hiring an employee engagement manager is becoming more common, but not all companies need this role. Evaluating your situation and needs can help you decide if this is a crucial position for your staff. Some factors include:

• Company size: If you have a small company with just a few employees, you likely don’t need a people engagement manager. It’s more common in medium and large businesses.

• Hiring priorities: Companies that are growing might have other roles they need to fill before they consider hiring an employee engagement manager. For example, if you don’t yet have a dedicated HR staff member to handle hiring and other HR duties, you might prioritize that role.

• Budget: With any new position, you need to run the numbers to make sure you have the budget for the hiring costs, salary and benefits for the employee.

• Current employee experience: Look at your current employee engagement levels to see if you have a need for a specialized role. Most companies can stand to improve the employee experience, even if the team is relatively happy. However, if you don’t have any concerns in this area, you might not need to invest in this role.

• Engagement goals: It can also help to consider what goals you have in this area. If you want to improve your results when it comes to staff engagement, you might decide it’s worth it to have a dedicated staff member working on it. However, if you have other priorities in your business, you might hold off on hiring for this role.

FAQs about employee engagement managers

Who handles engagement if you don’t have an engagement manager?

If you don’t have an engagement manager, the duty often falls to the human resources team. Employee engagement involves recognition, learning opportunities, company culture, diversity and more. The HR staff members who handle those topics can also help improve the employee experience. Managers and supervisors also have a major impact on how engaged employees feel.

What types of employee engagement tools are available?

Companies and employment engagement managers can use apps and software to help with employee engagement. Employee recognition platforms are one example. You might also use software to conduct employee surveys, set up a digital suggestion box or create a social feed where you post recognition and company news. These tools save time and can improve the response you get from your team.