What is engagement?

[Eb]

Engagement is the business buzz word of the times, there's so many practitioners out there who use the word and say they specialise in engagement my question is how would you define engagement in no more than one line?

Interested to hear the different iterations for this

[Eb]

Our definition of Engagement is simply-"Willful participation"-

Getting the people you need willfully participating in the things you need them to!

[Ben Simonton]

Since it is a buzz word, I doubt that it has any real definition.

But if it is a good word, then I would define it by the following - unleashing each employee's full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation, and commitment.

That definition is what I use as the goal of managing people as a result of my 30+ years of managing people including four successful turnarounds.

Best regards, Ben

[Bob Gately]

Employee engagement is what we get in return for hiring employees with talent for their jobs and then managing them effectively.

Hiring for talent is the easy part, managing them effectively is the hard part.

[David Zinger]

Employee engagement is behavioral and emotional connection to work, results, meaning, organization, customers, relationships.

[Paul M. Mastrangelo]

Engagement means winning employees' minds, hearts, and hands. They logically decide that it makes sense to stay with the organization, they are proud of that organization, and they are willing to give extra effort for that organization. Maximizing employee engagement first depends on attracting and hiring employees with a good person-organization fit. Next, engagement depends on employees believing that their engagement is being "matched" by the organization in terms of clear goals, authority to reach those goals, helpful colleagues and management who remove obstacles, leadership assuring long-term organization success, and effective coordination among various internal groups to assure alignment.

[Jon Ingham]

"Engagement is simply a small bucket within the bigger bucket of human capital."

See: http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/2009/03/engagement-and-human-capital.html

[Maureen Vandergeest]

As someone who focuses on engagement for 450+ employees, I think about it at a very personal, human level. With that perspective, engagement is liking what I do, liking who I do it for and having an optimistic (confident) outlook for my future.

[Peter A Hunter]

Defining employee engagement is just semantics, we know what it is.
What is really important is answering the question, if we havn't got it, how do we get it?

Peter A Hunter
www.breakingthemould.co.uk

[Eric Lobser]

Employee engagement is the end result of employees being aligned with the company's interests, as well as the company being aligned with the employee's interests - employees and companies working together to meet the customers' needs.

[Winston tikaram]

the ability to mobilise employees around a vision, and core set of values and principles, then give them the freedom to work together as a team to make that vision a reality