Employees are a business’s most valuable resource, so it follows that employee engagement is essential in managing and nurturing this resource. This isn’t simply about looking after your employees’ interests though: a fully engaged workforce can help transform a business or organisation, from the inside out.
The benefits come from improved productivity, better internal communications, and closer collaborative work, along with a more innovative approach overall. Employee engagement is also essential in retaining talent and fostering a positive workplace environment.
What Does Employee Engagement Mean?
Is it enough to keep people happy and satisfied with the jobs they are doing? Employee engagement goes much further than this. The object is to help employees form an emotional commitment to your business and to its goals and values. Does this matter? Employee engagement can have a profound transformative effect on a business, optimising productivity and helping it achieve its strategic objectives. Don’t underestimate the difference a truly connected, committed workforce can make.
What Are the Benefits?
The number one benefit of effective employee engagement is improved productivity. In the pharma and biotech sector, competition is fierce in research and development and production. Productivity is key in staying ahead of the competition. Employees who feel properly valued are more likely to take the initiative and be more efficient in helping bring new solutions to market, working collaboratively with each other. Your goal becomes their shared goal.
There is an intimate link between recruitment, engagement and staff retention. The staff you properly engage are much less likely to leave and more likely to make the most of their talent in the service of your business goals. They are fully committed to their role and your company, and they can be powerful advocates for your brand, helping promote you as a desirable employer. This is vital in the digital world we all live and work in, where opinions carry real currency and can spread far and wide through social media channels. The market for employees in pharma, biotech and medical devices is competitive and anything that will give you an advantage in recruiting and retaining talented staff is of enormous value.
The Measure of Success
Employee engagement is not some vague aspiration or quality: you can measure its success. How an employee perceives it will come from the quality of leadership, the role of the company, what personal and career development opportunities there are for them, and what pay and benefits they can enjoy. How an employee expresses it will be in a willingness to stretch themselves, to work well with others, to develop solid, fruitful working relationships and display a genuine need to help the business advance. It can also result in less sick days and a general sense of greater motivation.
For the business, it must demonstrate its commitment to employee engagement through support, encouragement, and recognition. It is an ongoing process built on establishing close bonds of trust through honest communications.
Contact us to find out more about employee engagement in pharma and biotech and how it could transform your business from within.