Employee engagement has been defined as the extent to which employees feel passionate about the organisation, have a sense of belonging and responsibility to their jobs, are committed to the organisation, what they do and are not looking for alternatives. We at CusJo, agree, but we have realised in our engagement with forward looking and transformational organisations that it's a lot more that.

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And employee engagement is not a synonym for employee satisfaction either. Satisfaction has the connotation on when expectations meet delivery perfectly. That for any rational and reasonable human being is an impossibility to consistently achieve.  Satisfaction is a function of temporary happiness and contentment. It does not factor in a whole bunch of things and very importantly the entire employee journey from recruitment to empowerment to growth. Satisfaction after all for many is as simple as collecting their pay check, doing as little as possible and being left alone not to be stretched and deliver anything outside of mediocre value to the organisation.

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For many the most satisfying job in the world would be one in which they get a lot for doing almost nothing. 

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But, that does not work well for an organisation. Properly run organisations need profitability for the organisation, performance from their teams and fulfilment in their people. This fufilment is distinct from satisfaction as this fulfilment is the result of a job well done and being adequately acknowledged and rewarded for it. Employee satisfaction on the other hand is not conducive to achieving that. Furthermore what some employees consider to be their satisfaction ultimately leads to their dissatisfaction when things go irrecoverably South. 

"A" performers on the other hand are happy to dispense with their short term satisfaction, embrace change and not wait for their cheese to be moved.  They are like the Steve Jobs imagined "Crazy One" advertisement that Rob Siltanen wrote to kickstart Apple's Think Different campaign, when he came back in to helm the company he founded as an interim CEO in 1997.

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The script for the advertisement ran as such. 

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"Here's to the crazy ones.

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The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

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They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.

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You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

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And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

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For us the key phrase is "They push the human race forward."  Consider that that is the ideal of employee engagement. And to push the human race forward organisations need to pay attention to every facet of their employee journey from Recruitment to Empowerment to Engagement. Doing an employee engagement survey once a year or once every 2 years is quite simply not enough. It needs to be done at least twice a year if not more frequently.

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Employee engagement is paying attention to and acting on the entire talent journey, from way before the talent joins the organisation to way after some of them have left or have found themselves with no choice but to leave.

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It involves paying attention to distinct phases and the stages in those phases and over time having all those levels of engagement tell a picture of the entire talent journey. Short of which you employee engagement efforts will not bear the fruits your desire.