Is employee engagement just another fad idea created to make us feel we are doing something in response to the never-ending candidate squeeze or does it hold true value? What is it exactly and how easy is it to adopt in your organisation?

Employee engagement is a term often misunderstood. To many, it is just another buzz phrase floating around the ether in response to our constant need to come up with new, exciting and creative catch-phrases. However, to others it is a high priority and integral part of their organisation’s strategic planning, vision and values.

Over 90% of last month's Rewards recipients indicated that they believe it is important for management to consult employees before making decisions that affect the workforce but only 50% indicated that their organisation currently has a formal program in place to manage this type of communication,

So, we recognise it is important to engage employees but how is it done in day-to-day operations?

Effective employee engagement is all about communication and motivation. Creating excitement amongst your workforce about your business and the work they do helps them to reach their full potential by tapping into what makes them tick, what initiates enjoyment at work and essentially what makes them turn up for work each day - other than the vain hope that one day their Powerball number will come up!

CEOs, Managing Directors and business owners are not going to dispute the power of an engaged workforce. They know full well an engaged workforce is far more likely to work harder to reach their potential and that this ultimately translates to the bottom line.

Engaging employees is also about collaboration and two-way communication. A truly engaged workforce will have been invited and encouraged to participate. They will have been listened to and seen the outcomes in terms of the on-flow of solutions. They will feel empowered and valued. This workforce not only performs their job roles, but assists other team members willingly, thinks up new and creative ideas to improve processes, products and services and enthusiastically adapts to new ways of thinking.

So where do you start? Employee engagement outcomes involve a number of key steps to success. Here are some of the things you need to do to kick-start your employee engagement strategy.

Identify key drivers

Talk to your employees - use all the methods available to you to identify what motivates and excites them. Use surveys, focus groups, appraisals and exit interviews. Get them to talk to you about what they consider to be the most important aspects of working with your organisation.

Clearly communicate your organisation's goals and objectives

Analyse how you are communicating with your employees. What methods are you are using to communicate? Do you encourage feedback or is it largely one-way? Are you assuming your employees understand your business goals and objectives? Ask for feedback on how you are doing.

Gap analysis

Use the information you gather from your employees to determine where the gaps are. Then you can start to devise a range of solutions and programs to fill them in. Understand your challenges and then devise a range of creative solutions to meet those challenges and make sure you let employees know what you have discovered.

Building leadership team capabilities

Make sure your leadership team is committed to your employee engagement strategy.  Equip them with the necessary tools and training to be able to communicate its objectives to their teams, encouraging open participation and change. Don’t let it become ‘another HR fad.’

Aligning your employer brand promises

Make sure the promises you are making relating to your employer branding message are aligned with your employee engagement strategy. Misaligning these two intricately related functions could mean total disaster and mistrust.

With the right combination of communication, motivation and imagination, your employee engagement programme could add real value to your existing HR strategies.