Here at Hays we surveyed 1,196 employers and employees and found that being valued, recognition for a job well done, and understanding how their success will be measured are the top three engagement factors for employees.
Yet employers believe that ensuring staff understand how their role contributes to the organisation’s success, how their role helps the organisation achieve its objectives, and feeling valued are most important.
This explains why 97% of employers believe staff engagement is important yet just 40% believe that their staff are engaged. 
Interestingly the candidate of ten years ago, even five years ago, is not the same as the candidate of today. Not only is the workforce more diverse, but what is important to people has changed.
From our own experience we know that today candidates want to work with organisations not for them. This is a huge shift in mindset and explains why a clear understanding of how their role helps the organisation achieve its objectives and clear communication of the organisation’s objectives and strategy appear in fourth and fifth place respectively in the engagement factors for employees.
Employees also want to feel valued. As mentioned a feeling of being valued tops the list of engagement factors, followed by recognition for a job well done. This is closely followed by an understanding of how your success will be measured, which makes sense when we consider that people need to know what they will be judged on if they are to perform well, be valued and receive recognition for their work.
Giving an employee a voice is also far more important today than it was ten years ago. Employees want to feel that their differences are valued and that they can share their opinions at work. Crucially, those opinions must be respected. This makes the emerging concept of diversity of thought a valuable one in employee engagement terms.
Just as importantly, people want to see results taken after giving feedback. They want their voice to be heard, and an employee engagement survey or another employee feedback process which is not taken seriously by management will be seen as mere tokenism.
While flexibility is increasingly important to people in order to balance their work and personal commitments and priorities, in engagement terms it did not rank in the top 12. It came in at number 14, suggesting that flexible working options will attract and retain employees, but when it comes to engagement they should not be given priority over those factors that appear further up the list.
A yearly salary review came in at number 12 on the list of importance, behind regular learning and development opportunities and a good induction and on boarding process. Clearly engagement cannot be bought and if we want employees to go above and beyond it will take more than a competitive compensation package.
Given how rapidly the world of work has changed in recent years, and will continue to change in future, staff engagement strategies need to respond in kind if we are to continue benefiting from a workforce that is productive, innovative, impacts positively on the bottom line, puts in discretionary effort, and is more likely to be retained.