The level of employee engagement can be measured by the willingness and ability of employees to contribute to the success of their organisation. It is their discretionary effort which is an essential element for the good health and well being of a company.

A highly engaged workforce shows the high level of engagement in their work and is always keen to take up new challenges in order to bring a positive change or establish a highly conducive work environment. Various studies have shown that higher level of employee engagement is directly linked to high satisfaction among them, productivity and profitability of organisation and satisfied and loyal customers.

The model below illustrates a few characteristics of an engaged workforce that play an essential role in the success of any organisation.

Mutual Trust: Trust is the base of any organisation. Letting people do their work without telling them how to perform it is one of the best ways to engage staff. Employees welcome each other’s opinions and find out a wide variety of ways to accomplish a particular task. A highly engaged workforce doesn’t need directions at each step. They can perform their jobs with mutual help and trust.

Job and Career Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is one of the main characteristics of an engaged workforce. The individual who is satisfied with their career and the way their career graph is raising prefers to stick to the organisation for a very long period of time. Switching the organisations frequently is not a characteristic of satisfied employee.

Credible Leadership: As mentioned earlier, an engaged workforce doesn’t need directions for performing a specific job from time to time. Employees know how to do it in the best possible manner. They not only exhibit credible leadership qualities in routine tasks but also come up with innovative ways to deal with crisis or emergencies.

Focused and Keen to Take up Challenges: An engaged workforce is entirely focused and knows what to do and when. They are always keen to take up new challenges in order to solve the existing problems in the organisation as well as acquire new skills. Not only this, they are always keen to learn new things and widening their horizon.

Better Performance: Employee engagement is directly related to better performance. Employee performance is the only way to measure the engagement, involvement and dedication of employees towards their jobs. If all these factors cannot be interlinked, there is no meaning of anything. It can be said that the workforce is not engaged or actively disengaged.

Problem Solving Attitude: Engaged workforce not only delivers its job responsibilities but also keeps a problem solving attitude always. A highly engaged employee displays a sense of belongingness towards the organisation and makes every effort to solve the problems that pose a hindrance in the organisation’s way of success.

The above mentioned are the essential characteristics of an engaged workforce. However, mutual respect, commitment, enthusiasm, optimism and discretionary efforts to serve customers better are add-on characteristics that an engaged employee generally exhibits.

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