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In corporate circles everyone seems to be talking about 'employee engagement' - its almost becoming a cliché. Is this a management fad or a long-overdue recognition that human capital deserves greater attention in the modern workplace?

There is growing evidence to suggest that organisations that are able to proactively develop their brands relationship with employees are better able to attract and retain the best people, foster innovation, develop and maintain a competitive edge which results in social and commercial profit. Employees are in the driving seat, it is the employers job to make sure their brands are relevant and attractive to the best talent.

So what is employee engagement? We define it as:

An employees emotional and psychological relationship with their employers brand and their job, which influences higher levels of performance and loyalty.

An engaged employee is one that has the best interests of the organisation at heart. They are fully committed, they take responsibility, are keen to contribute and give more of themselves to achieve an organisational goal.

An employee that is not engaged goes through the motions. They are no longer really committed to the job, they rarely contribute in meetings, they lack enthusiasm and they no longer accomplish as much as they used to.

An actively disengaged employee is one that wants to tear down the organisation from the inside. They are resentful and want to cause damage to the brand reputation.

The business case Employee performance Employee engagement is not an altruistic goal, its a commercial one. It's no co-incidence that the companies recognised as being the best places work are also those that are most commercially successful.

As Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden highlighted in their excellent book 'Contented Cows', not much has changed in the relationship between workforce attitudes and productive output in the last 80 years. They reminded us of Elton Mayo's motivational experiments in the late '20's entitled The Harvard Studies which revealed two things:

1. That human beings are uniquely capable of regulating their involvement in and commitment to a given task or endeavour.
2. That the extent to which we do or do not fully contribute is governed more by attitude than by necessity, fear, or economic influence.

These and later studies led to the term 'discretionary effort' which is defined as the level of effort which is minimally necessary and that of which we are actually capable. As Catlette/Hadden put it, "It represents the difference between obedience and high performance, and between those that are managed versus those who are led. It's expenditure is completely a matter of choice."

Today, with the protection afforded by employment law and relatively high levels of employment, disengaged employees are able to be much more overt in their withdrawal of discretionary effort. The organisation is unable to take any action because the employee is 'doing their job', but only just.

The fact is, people make the difference. An engaged workforce is clearly more productive than a disengaged workforce which has direct impact on the bottom line.

Employee loyalty Engaged employees don't just perform better, they stick around for longer. No doubt this is due to the fact they truly believe in the long term vision of the organisation and want to drive towards it. This is great for employers as they keep the best talent and also avoid hefty recruitment and training costs.