If I had a pound for every time I hear Employee engagement?

I have recently been recruiting a number of senior management roles in Liverpool & across the Pennines in Hull and the Yorkshire regions. These have been Manufacturing Operations Management positions and Operations Director roles which are basically running a factory and leading a manufacturing team. Interestingly I have noticed a common theme from my clients when recruiting a senior management team; to improve employee engagement.

Now I am not from a Human Resources background and have not been in organisations where I have been part of any activity to improve performance under the banner of ‘employee engagement.’ So I thought I would look into it and find out more...

The reason why most employers would want an engaged work force is quite obvious. The general feeling is an engaged workforce would outperform others, go the extra mile and show more passion and a higher level of interest in the organisation. This will then obviously be a more efficient and higher performing work place which will deliver better rewards to all its stakeholders being; employees, customers, share holders etc.

The things I am interested in are:

What is employee engagement?

How can it be measured?

How can it be managed?

What are the consequences and benefits of engagements?

The best definition I could find is “being positively present during the performance of work by willingly contributing intellectual effort, and experiencing both positive emotions and meaningful connections to others.

I am keen to find out more. I would like to speak to anyone who has some good case studies of implementing employee engagement successfully into manufacturing. Please get in touch?