When employee engagement becomes foundational to how you do business as a part of people initiatives, it will become a key strategy for organizational planning as well.

There could be a goal, something like “Improve employee engagement from X to Y by DATE”. Establishing lead indicators will drive change as well. Clear dashboards with weekly accountability sessions will make improvement real for management. With the clear link to customer engagement established, customer engagement will improve as well.

According to an article by Bruce Temkin, since 2007, “Bombardier Aerospace’s annual employee engagement and enablement survey has given all employees a voice within the organization. In 2012, 93% of employees completed the survey. Managers are evaluated based on the engagement levels of their employees. To create an environment that ensures performance, every leader has an annual target for employee engagement.

Employee Engagement Define It, Measure It and Put It to Work in Your Organization – Research by APQC, one of the leading proponents of process and performance improvement, has yielded key insights into what engagement is, how it can be measured and how it can be integrated into organizational culture.

Here are the key ideas:

1. Employee engagement is a key to the customer experience and should be a key metric for the C-Suite
2. Setting a quantifiable employee engagement goal is essential
3. Strategies that reflect leading indicators that lead to achieving the goal make a huge difference