Qualities of a Highly Engaged Employee and Why You Should Care

By Sundar Gopalan, PMP

In today’s fast-paced corporate environment where change is constant, employers are challenged to keep their employees connected with its organization’s vision, mission and goals. Alternatively, employees have the similar challenge to align with those same objectives. Many organizations, including mine, conduct annual surveys asking employees to rate the satisfaction in the workplace. Employers often measure employee engagement to increase employee involvement and to elevate productivity. Employee engagement is not a new concept, but it is an important aspect in the success of an organization. The focus of this article is to outline my perspective of what employee engagement has always meant to me as an employee and especially as a project and program manager.

Engaged Employees

Employees are expected to stay connected so when a business shift occurs, they can interpret and relate its implications to their role, and to make corresponding course corrections in how they work and deliver to the organization’s expectations. This is an experiential definition of employee engagement based on my own years of experience. This definition only covers a basic expectation of employee engagement, something that every organization expects of their employees at a minimum.

Highly Engaged Employees

From my own observations and experience, the attitude of highly engaged employees sets them apart from their peers. Highly productive and personable team members on my team have always been highly engaged. I have observed that such employees demonstrate the willingness to operate outside their comfort zone, to always know more and to do more. They are in a constant learning mode keeping tabs on activities happening around the organization. Such employees can easily relate their work to the organization’s mission, objectives and values. They have a high sense of ownership and often demonstrate the courage to constructively criticize proposed solutions and to challenge decisions of both their teams and the leaders of the organization with an honest intent that ultimately benefits the organization. They proactively assume a certain degree of autonomy and make decisions with the goal to come up with better solutions. I have also found highly engaged employees to be humble, approachable and willing to take risks. They are quick to offer help, frequently come up with new ideas and are never discouraged when they are wrong.

What’s in it for Me

Highly engaged employees happen to be very desirable employees. Besides becoming “go to” experts, they frequently are assigned new and interesting assignments because they become visible. Also, in my experience, it takes a highly engaged employee to become highly successful. Highly engaged employees are better equipped to understand and pivot with the organizational direction and to meaningfully respond to calls for action from senior leaders of the organization. Being highly engaged helps the employee develop a deep understanding of the organization’s values and business philosophy. This enables them to channel their talent and skills in the most effective way that benefits the organization and in turn also benefits the
employee’s own professional growth. It should be noted that being highly engaged does not automatically guarantee success. A basic level of engagement is a necessity for all employees to meet the expectations of their roles and responsibilities. To become highly successful requires that employees also meet or exceed their performance goals and deliverables. Being highly engaged only makes this so much easier to accomplish.

Desirable Behaviors to Move Toward High Employee Engagement

Each one of us works differently due to personal and professional backgrounds and our personalities. So, there is no “cookie cutter” method to become highly engaged in our own organizations. The guidelines that I have provided below are based entirely on my own professional experience working both as an individual contributor as well as a leader managing large teams. I am hoping that some if not all these guidelines will be helpful to others. These tips and guidelines can be used during self-inquiry and reflection, something that all employees should undertake frequently to assess how well they are doing as employees and leaders of their organization.

Find Your Passion

Ask yourself if you are passionate about what you do. If you are excited about the work, you do and have fun doing it and when you wake up in the morning and cannot wait to get to work then you are in the right place. If any of this is not true, then consider a change. If you are a DIYer that loves doing home improvements around the house, no one really needs to tell you to take on some new project. You will get into it at the first opportunity. Develop a similar kind of love and passion for the work you do for your organization. If employees love their work and they do it like they own it, the outcomes are likely to be outstanding. Feeling a personal ownership and liking what we do increases our “skin in the game” and lets our talent and passion shine through in the work we deliver. This in turn increases our engagement and the desire to do more.

Ask Yourself If You Are Empowered

Empowerment is about allowing employees to make appropriate decisions. Do you feel you have the latitude to take independent decisions, make mistakes in the process and learn from it? If so, you are in the right place. In addition, the organizational culture should allow employees to raise concerns or ask honest questions without fearing a backlash or reprisal. One of the first things I tell my team is that they can speak up any time to me about any issue or concern and if the issue remains unresolved, then they should feel free to take it to my manager. If your manager shares a similar philosophy, then it is my opinion you are in the right environment to become highly engaged.

Ask Yourself if You Are Ready to Step Up

Highly engaged employees are always curious and constantly learning. In the process they develop a deeper understanding of their domain of work as well as other domains of their organization. Are you willing to accept opportunities to volunteer for additional work or take new responsibilities? Some of these could be once in a lifetime opportunity to learn more, increase visibility in the organization and a way to put yourself in the front if a formal position of higher responsibility comes up. If you have never taken risks, maybe this is a good time to take one to find out for example whether you have a hidden talent or skill that may just happen to be very valuable to your organization.

Ask Yourself Why You Joined the Organization

Did you have a vision for yourself when you joined your organization? For example, such a vision could be to work with the new technologies within the organization, change a job role, get promoted, earn industry recognition, etc. Critically assess your position and your progress to find out if you are in the right place and if you are, whether you are making the progress you expected to make. As an employee you should expect to learn and grow with the organization that you work for. If you are in a niche role performing the same routine activities day in and day out, you are not growing even if your organization thinks you are doing great. If our creative mind has nothing exciting to do, it de-motivates us which in turn has a direct impact on our (employee) engagement. It is therefore very important to check if you have a win-win, then working toward higher engagement within the organization will become smoother.

Know What Matters to Your Organization

Every organization care about a set of values that are core to the organization’s success and growth. These are usually time-tested values with a track record of being very valuable to the organization. For example, in the organization that I work for, work ethics is one of several values that are extremely important. It is the responsibility of all employees, whether highly engaged or not, to understand and adhere to these values. Highly engaged employees make it part of their gene to not just adhere but to exceed the expectations of their organization’s values.

Summary

Curiosity, courage, honesty, willingness, commitment and humility are all key qualities of highly engaged employees. Being a highly engaged employee helps to expand knowledge and expertise outside the employee’s own area of work. Coupled with a personable attitude, such employees become very desirable and valuable to their organization. High engagement does not guarantee high success. However, it clears the way for the employee to realize their full potential, highlights the “how” aspect of their accomplishments, creates new opportunities and increases their visibility.

© Sundar Gopalan - The ideas, experiences and solutions presented in this publication are based entirely on the author’s own experiences as a Project and Program Manager for nearly 17 years.