Employee Engagement: How to Motivate Your Team?

E mployee engagement. Without question, a corporate buzz word. But, what does engaging employees mean? How can you do it? Does it matter to your bottom line? Why does it matter if you have engaged employees on your team? Nursing leaders play an integral role in employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and employee productivity. Satisfied and engaged nurses provide safer and higher quality patient care. Engaged nurses strive for higher patient satisfaction. Engaged employees have more motivation and interest in participating in department activities and in improving patient safety and patient care initiatives. Employee engagement often starts with a nursing leader. Nursing leaders have significant impact on the way an employee feels about their career, their patients, and their organization. Carnegie 1 describes employee engagement as an emotional and functional commitment to the employee’s organization. Leiter and Maslach 2 note that engagement requires energy, involvement, and efficacy. Kahn 3 adds 3 conditions of work associated with employee engagement: meaningfulness, safety, and availability. Engaged employees are committed to their organization. They are high performers who are enthusiastic, empowered, inspired, and confident. 1 Engaged employees are emotionally and cognitively immersed in their job allowing a sense of meaningfulness and value in the work leading to higher sensitivity to the organization’s mission and to organizational change. 4