The Multiplier Effect: Insights into How Senior Leaders Drive Employee Engagement Higher

It’s not getting any easier! The majority of organisations are still fighting for resources, reputation and market share. Our HR colleagues recognise the importance of employee engagement in helping to create resilient organisations that thrive in challenging conditions and are equipped to take advantage of more buoyant circumstances when they present themselves.

In all industry sectors, turbulent times call for bold leadership. The role of managers and leaders will continue to be an area of focus. Last year, Aon Hewitt looked at the role of managers as a whole in improving engagement in our report Managers – The Strongest (or Weakest) Link in Employee Engagement. 

This paper – The Multiplier Effect – will provide new evidence that demonstrates the tremendous impact the top, executive level of management has on engagement.
Employee engagement is fundamentally a measure of employees’ willingness to give their discretionary effort to help the organisation achieve and exceed its goals. In the last few years, we have observed a phenomenon that we called “engagement recession”: increased economic uncertainty leading to anxiety and confusion on the part of employees, accompanied by growth in unproductive behaviours and a strong decline in engagement. While leadership has always played an important part in building employee engagement, we have observed that, under exceptional conditions, their role is even more crucial.

The good news is that we have recently observed the first positive signs that the engagement recession is coming to an end; employee engagement seems to be stabilising.

Whilst it is early days, this encouraging picture suggests that many organisations and their employees have become more resilient to challenging work and economic environments. Our client experience leads us to believe that many organisations have learned from their recent mistakes and, even in the face of continuing uncertainty and pressure, are working hard to maintain the psychological contract. From an employee perspective, they, themselves, are looking for ways to be innovative and make change happen.

Despite the fact that employee engagement appears to be stabilising, the difficult times are probably not over. As Europe faces another challenging year economically, companies continue to struggle, employee engagement is still at risk and leaders have an ongoing key role to play.

Aon Hewitt’s research specifically demonstrates the important role played by top-level management in driving employee engagement.