Leading business into a new era

Leading business into a new era

Georgia Gray discusses the benefits of an engaged workforce:

It seems obvious that those leaders who effectively lead their teams and set them up for success by watching them in action, having meaningful dialogue with their team members, getting to the root cause of employee concerns, and following through with action with meaningful improvements have happier, more engaged employees. By engagement we mean how emotionally and functionally committed an employee is to his or her organisation. The business benefits to having an engaged workforce are immense. As stated by Gallup, companies with engaged employees outperform those that don't by up to a staggering 202%!

Employee engagement is a challenge for companies globally today. Individuals are less brand loyal than before and the global workforce is a more transient now than ever before.

As recently reported in a Harvard Business Review article, Bain & company in conjunction with Netsurvey, analysed responses from 200,000 employees across 40 companies in 60 countries and found several interesting trends:

• Engagement scores decline with employee tenure, meaning that employees with the deepest knowledge of the company typically are the least engaged.
• Engagement scores decline as you go down the organisation, so you may have highly engaged senior executives but because of this they are likely to underestimate the discontent on the front lines.
• Engagement levels are lowest among sales and service employees, who have the most interactions with customers.

Despite this, there are some companies who really buck these trends and have highly engaged teams, prepared to give that discretionary effort that in turn creates a superior experience for customers. As a result customers reward these companies by being fiercely loyal which in turn significantly impacts their annual revenue.These companies make a conscious effort to impact the engagement of their teams and invest heavily in creating a culture of employee engagement. But what are their secrets? It would seem that communication between leaders and employees lies at the heart of success. After all, business is returning to a time where personal relationships are valued.

On the morning of October 1st, EP and partners are delighted to host a half-day conference focused on new leaders and traditional values with participation from an exciting group of speakers & presenters, including:

• Angela Vickers, Apex Hotels
• Jillian MacLean, Drake & Morgan
• Allister Richards, Gather & Gather
• Chris Penn, ACE Hotels
• Kathryn Pretzel-Shiels, American Express

EP in alliance with HIT Scotland and ehotelier are delighted to host this conference that focuses on one of the most important features of the industry.Networking over breakfast will begin from 8am on the morning of October 1st in Central London with presentations beginning at 9am, closing after lunch in the afternoon. Tickets are available at £59 per person, including vat. Should you wish to register your interest to attend, and for more information on any of the EP initiatives, please contact Arlene McCaffrey