Fostering Your Own Engagement Leads to Organizational Longevity

I was looking through some notes I made a couple months ago about employee engagement and how I interpret it.  In many organizations, employee engagement is looked at as the relationship between the employee and the company.  In actuality, it goes far beyond this and is the relationships that an individual employee builds with colleagues and clients that truly indicate how likely the employee is to stay with the organization.

Engagement is not something the company can “do” to the employee, it is a set of behaviors an employee must embrace in order to make the connections that will be lasting.

As I look at the list this morning, I notice it is a summary of ways we can be a better team member, a way to make a department better and even a way to address problems when you are not properly aligned with the expectations of a leader.

Ways to foster your own engagement

• Volunteer to do more
• Be more active (in the group, the topic, etc.)
• Look for ways to improve, then implement them
• Take ownership for what goes well and where you need to improve
• Get “fired up” and use your passion
• Be loyal
• Build trusting relationships

The take away for me, and maybe for you, is that many of the things we can do to foster our own engagement in a workplace or some other activity we pursue are the very things that will help us build relationships and work better with people.

What do you think?  What would you add to the list?