Employee Engagement Impacts Small Companies

Employee Engagement is not part of the everyday language of a small company, but the impact of employee engagement affects the success of every business. When employees have a personal connection to their job, organization or team, they are motivated to excel in their work. When employees excel, the business excels. Motivating employees to excel is important for large and small businesses alike, but their approaches may be very different.

Many larger organizations have access to internal expertise or an external consulting firm to measure employee engagement and initiate strategies to increase employee motivation. However, many large companies face the “ocean liner” reality. Even if they know what to do and follow through, impacting employee motivation takes an incredible amount of time and influence across many layers in order to see results. Smaller companies, with 20 to 500 employees, have an extra advantage in their efforts to engage employees and a greater potential to make an impact on the business in a shorter time.

Here are some of the things that make engaging employees easier in small companies:

• Involvement of senior leaders. One of the drivers of employee engagement is the visibility and accessibility of senior leaders. Senior leaders can impact engagement in a positive manner by talking about engagement, endorsing efforts to measure engagement, and championing actions to motivate employees. Being personally accessible to employees conveys a huge message. Smaller organizations may be able to get all employees in the same room at the same time, or at least all the managers and supervisors. This in-person access to senior leaders can accelerate efforts to inspire and motivate employees.

• Teamwork of managers. Organizational performance is driven in large part by the ability of managers to get the right person in the right place at the right time, doing the right work. However, individual managers do NOT always have the right talents or motivation to get that job done. If a manager could see across the entire organization, they may just find that talent. When ALL managers can sit in a room and dialogue about talent needs and unused talent potential, the organization has at its disposal more internal candidates who otherwise might function in obscurity.

Managers must be willing to support employee’s movement to other areas within the organization and the benefit is mutual as the sharing comes back around. When managers focus on matching talents to organizational needs, everyone wins as employees thrive in their jobs and extend the extra effort for success. This new approach to managing talent may require a shift in the culture and processes of an organization. However, the flexibility and size of smaller organizations makes this shift in culture more likely and new processes can be initiated more quickly.

• Opportunities for growth and development. In smaller organizations, employees have opportunities to be involved in a breadth of activities and work tasks. When employees are interested in their work they are more likely to be motivated and will put in the extra effort to accomplish a task. Job requirements in large companies can be quite narrow. After a few years, a job plateau can occur, reducing satisfaction and engagement. The same kinds of “business roles,” (e.g. finance, human resources, marketing, IT, operations) exist in small and large companies alike. However, small companies can take advantage of their smaller scale and create flexibility and opportunity for employees to experience a variety of interesting work. This keeps the job fresh and allows it to grow with the employee as they enhance their skills and expand their interests.

• Line of sight to organizational success. An employee’s ability to directly and personally see how their efforts contribute to the success of the organization is another important driver of engagement. In a smaller organization, employees are more likely to see the end product of their work. Their involvement is often part of more than one department, system or process. They have multiple touch points with the products and services of the organization and take more ownership because of their involvement.

Employee Engagement may not be a word that is commonly used in small companies, but the concept is one that is critical to the success of any organization, large or small. Smaller companies have the opportunity to make an impact on employee engagement that can accelerate growth and leverage the talent they have to their fullest potential.

At The Bailey Group we offer, The Bailey Employee Engagement Survey, to help small companies measure employee engagement. Our survey process and employee engagement services are designed to maximize the advantages of the smaller business. To find out more please contact me at 763-545-5997×306 or bktaylor@thebaileygroup.com.