Experts: Small firms may have the upper hand on worker engagement

Large companies with sizable HR teams and hefty budgets would seem to have the upper hand when it comes to employee engagement, but that’s not necessarily the case.  

A Gallup report released last year found that from 2012 to 2016, engagement at small companies grew by 5 percentage points, while engagement at other companies barely budged or even diminished.

In many cases, smaller companies with fewer layers of management and fewer employees have an opportunity to reach their workers on a more direct, intimate level, giving them a potential advantage.

“Very small companies often have high individual ownership for the outcomes of the business, [while] large organizations need multiple teams and managers to operate in sync and communicate,” says Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace management and well-being at Washington-based Gallup, an analytics and advice firm.

Still, many larger organizations Gallup has worked with have achieved high engagement levels, and while a company’s size can be a factor, the most important factor is the quality of management at all levels of the organization, he says.

Overall, companies seem to be doing a better job at engagement than in the past, likely reflective of improvements in the quality of management for some organizations, Harter says.

The percentage of "engaged" workers in the United States — those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace — is now 34 percent, tying its highest level since Gallup began reporting the national figure in 2000.

The percentage who are "actively disengaged" — workers who have miserable work experiences — is 13 percent, its lowest level. That's “likely due, in part, to a labor market with more choice, where employees don’t need to settle for poor work environments with bad bosses,” says Harter.

To be sure, leadership plays a key role in engaging employees.

“Each employee has their own unique engagement recipe,” says David Lee, founder and principal at HumanNature@Work, a Saco, Maine-based leadership and employee engagement firm.  “If you want to cook up a high engagement workplace…you need to know each employee’s ‘recipe’ items.”

Employers should have the “help me, help you, help us" conversation with employees, to see what they can do together “to make this the best work experience possible and allow you to do the best work to help us be the best company,” Lee says.

Too often, firms, especially larger ones, rely on “goodies, gimmicks and gala events” as the answer to improving engagement, he says. “They’re not applying the right solution to the issue. The solution comes out of the conversation.”

Employees need to feel that they’re valued and heard.

With that in mind, Ronkonkoma-based East/West Industries Inc., which designs and manufactures aircraft seats and crew life-support systems, gathers all its employees at least once a month for a meeting to provide updates on the firm’s progress and allow them to voice any questions or concerns, president Teresa Ferraro says. The company, with about 80 employees, was one of Long Island's Top Workplaces in a survey of employee engagement by Exton, Pennsylvania, research firm Energage.

Each month, each manager at the firm can recognize three workers for outstanding performance by placing their names in a drawing.  At the meeting a winner is picked and presented with a gift card, and the manager tells the group why they were recognized.

The firm also encourages employee enrichment by offering online and in-house classroom training in different areas, says Ferraro.

Having a sense of growth and development can boost engagement, say experts.

At P.W. Grosser Consulting Inc., a Bohemia-based environmental engineering firm that was also one of Long Island's Top Workplaces in the Energage survey, "lunch and learn" programs in technical areas are offered at least monthly on-site, says HR director Patricia Sileo.

“It helps employees understand different aspects of the company and their colleagues’ jobs,” she says.

The company, with about 60 employees on Long Island, also offers flexible scheduling, mainly for office positions, Sileo says.

Flexible scheduling is a low-cost tool that can reap significant benefits.

“You spend more time at work than you do with your families,” says Randi Busse, president of Workforce Development Group, a North Massapequa-based customer service training and employee engagement firm.

So if employees feel their family needs are being met, they can then focus and be more engaged at work, she says.

It also humanizes the employer.

“There’s a sense of caring,” says Tammy Cunha, a project manager at P.W. Grosser, who says she appreciates the firm’s flexibility. During the summer, when her son goes to camp, the bus picks him up from the office and drops him off there when camp ends.

She also appreciates open communication at the company.

The firm has an open-door policy that allows employees to approach top leadership, including founder and CEO Paul W. Grosser, without an appointment, says Sileo.

And while efforts like these are encouraging, “there’s a lot of room for improvement [at firms overall],” says Busse.

 Small businesses can definitely have an advantage when it comes to engagement, but “whether they take advantage of that advantage is another story,” she says.

- Jamie Herzlich