ELI President Rob Herndon shared his thoughts with Small Biz Daily on an entrepreneurial paradigm shift in the workplace being the key to employee engagement.
When people are engaged in their jobs, time flies and they forget they are working. They draw energy and mental resilience from their occupation. They feel enthusiastic, inspired, and proud of their work. Employee engagement sounds like something all of us can get behind—yet around the world, only about 30 percent of workers felt engaged before the pandemic.
The events of 2020 caused a downward blip everywhere, including within the U.S., but it turns out that employee engagement is remarkably stable, even during a pandemic and widespread social unrest. According to Gallup, we’re pretty much back where we started in early 2020.
What makes employee engagement especially important right now is that it’s a very strong predictor of workers’ performance during tough periods like an economic recession. Companies that have higher employee engagement will benefit across the board, in profitability, safety, absenteeism, product quality, turnover, productivity, and more.