What Makes for Great Employee Engagement?

Employee Engagement.

We all know it’s important.

We all know it directly affects the bottom line.

But, what’s the secret to building it and keeping it high?

We had the chance to sit down with Jason Turner, VP at ArcBest, to chat about that and more surrounding the topic of employee engagement.

Engagement with employees has been extensively studied over the years. As Jason defined it, “Essentially, employee engagement is the pride, energy and optimism that fuels employees and creates an intent to stay.”

What’s the Best Way to Keep Employees?

Keep them happy and engaged.

“To win a bigger share of the marketplace, companies must first win the hearts and minds of their employees,” Jason said.

We would agree.

It’s people that drive the customer experience and the associated profit. Levels of engagement are lead indicators of results on multiple levels. If employees are happy, that happiness and engagement will filter down to make a phenomenal customer experience.

And when that happens, profits rise.

How Does ArcBest Do It?

One way that ArcBest creates a high level of engagement is through the use of their annual employee survey.

“Employee feedback is crucial and we use it to craft initiatives designed to improve the employee experience. We know that if the employee experience is good, that will bleed over into them providing our customers a good experience,” mentioned Jason.

He went on to say that their leadership team has the ability to go into their custom dashboards and see in real time what the pulse is of their people, and how they are answering the survey questions.

Once all of the data is gathered, they build actionable plans so that employees know that what they say truly makes a difference. They then become part of the solution.

And it just doesn’t stop there. Jason works closely with the senior leadership team to make sure that they understand the importance of employee engagement and how it touches all aspects of the business.

He proudly stated, “I work with the senior leadership team to make sure that employee goals are seen as equally important as other business objectives.”

Employee engagement has to be a top-down strategy, where it’s importance is seen throughout the organization. From the top to the bottom, everyone needs to care about it.

Final Thoughts

When we asked Jason the one thing he’d want people to walk away with, he was very clear.

“The care for our employees threads through everything we do. We grow our employees and our business. We understand the value the employees bring and so we create processes to make this happen each day,” he stated.

This is what companies need to do. It’s not just a program, but a culture and senior leaders need to live by it. It needs to be authentically who they are for it to succeed.  

The theme was clear. Take care of your people and they will take care of you.

How are you taking care of your employees?

Click this link to hear the entire interview with Jason.