ENGAGEMENT &

MOTIVATION
TE
TEN MINUYS
TAKEAWA

5 steps to becoming an
employee engagement
and motivation pro.
 in numbers
ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION

Engaged and motivated employees are a prerequisite

of success for any business. With many companies
undergoing major restructuring due to the pandemic,
a quick glance at the numbers shows that it’s never
been more important to engage and motivate your
employees.

15% 3x
the annual operating margin attained by
of employees worldwide report
being engaged. companies with high engagement,
(Gallup, 2018) compared with those whose workforces
were less engaged.
(Towers Watson, 2012).

10x
Higher likelihood of engaged
employees saying that they have
1.5 Million
Jobs in the UK are at risk of being
creative freedom at work, compared automated in the future.
with disengaged employees.
(ONS, 2019)
(Gallup, 2019)

20%
shortfall in UK productivity
compared with the rest of the G7.
(According to the independent Employee
Engagement Task Force)
Over 5 Trillion
annual productivity losses for businesses
worldwide due to employee disengagement
caused by the Covid crisis.
(McKinsey, 2021)

Considering the extremely low numbers of engaged employees and

the vast cost of demotivated employees, understanding why and
how employees are engaged is imperative.
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

WHAT IS ENGAGEMENT AND WHAT DO

WE MEAN BY MOTIVATION?

Engagement and motivation have been discussed

extensively by psychologists, as well as HR and L&D
practitioners for over 25 years. Definitions of engagement
and motivation have broadened beyond employees’ relation Businesses with highly
to their immediate role, to incorporate the social and engaged workforces
psychological contexts of the workplace. benefit from increased
productivity.
At Thomas International, we define employee engagement
as the positive experience resulting from the relationships
you have, the role you do and the rewards you get in the
workplace. Intrinsically motivated employees love what they
do and will strive to master new skills and succeed. High
engagement and motivation have consistently been shown to correlate with
positive individual and organisational outcomes.

WHY ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION ARE ESSENTIAL

Studies show that businesses with highly engaged workforces benefit

from increased productivity, revenues and profits. Engaged, motivated
employees are a prerequisite for a firm’s ongoing commercial success (Hill &
Birkinshaw, 2012), leading organisations to spend hundreds of millions on
employee engagement programs (Morgan, 2017).

LEADERSHIP Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series

 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

Your workforce creates a sustainable competitive advantage, which is why

low engagement is a strategic risk, and high engagement and motivation are
a competitive advantage for your organisation.

ENGAGEMENT AND MOTIVATION IN REAL LIFE

Since the pandemic, employee disengagement and demotivation have

resulted in more than £5 trillion in productivity losses for businesses
worldwide (Gallup, 2020).

Employee disengagement is a secondary crisis, and the new normal of

hybrid and dispersed teams is only likely to worsen employee demotivation
and disengagement.

Time is scarce right now, so we’ve distilled leading research into takeaways
you can consume in two minutes to boost engagement and motivation in
your organisation.

High engagement and motivation

increase revenue, productivity and
innovation success rate.

Low engagement is a strategic risk, high

engagement is a competitive advantage.

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
6
ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

6 CAUSES OF LOW MOTIVATION AND

ENGAGEMENT AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

It isn’t always obvious who your disengaged and demotivated potential

flight risks are. So, it’s time to look at the less obvious signs of these
damaging behaviours.

Here are the top five causes of demotivation and disengagement, and the
practical actions that you can take to ensure that they don’t arise in your
organisation. .

1 POOR COMMUNICATION
Poor communication at the organisational, team or managerial
levels can lead to employee disengagement. Breakdowns in
communication can originate with the organisation, employee or both.
Research shows that although it is important to communicate strategy
and processes clearly, communication about behaviour is “where the most
significant increase in shareholder value can be realised” (Holtz, 2004).

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE COMMUNICATION?

Gain insights into each of your employee’s preferred communication
styles. For instance, process-oriented individuals will want to see detailed
information, whereas other individuals will prefer brief, results-focused
conversations.

You can gather these insights from simple Behavioural assessments

completed by your employees which provide managers detailed insights
into how to motivate and communicate with each of them. This enables
managers to modify their own communication styles to suit any employee
experiencing low motivation or engagement.

A 2020 study of 2.7 million employees across 96 countries, found that

higher employee engagement increased profitability by 23%, customer
loyalty by 10%, and internal communication by 13%. Gallup

2 LACK OF ROLE DEFINITION

A lack of clarity about a role and its contribution to overarching
organisational objectives is a key contributor to low
morale and employee disengagement. Employees
whose roles have been disrupted by furlough
schemes and colleagues being made redundant or
leaving over the past year may become demotivated Employees returning from
as a result. furlough may struggle to fit
back in, and some will be
Many workers will also have been asked to absorb alienated by too much change.
additional remits, wear multiple hats and shoulder
excessive pressure due to the pandemic. Those
returning from furlough may struggle to fit back in,
and some will be alienated by too much change.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO AVOID THIS?

Define how your organisation is changing as accurately as you can and be
succinct in communicating your vision for the future.

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

3 POOR PERFORMANCE
In the context of the current pressures on and disruption in the
workplace, poor performance and low productivity could be stress
signals. Different individuals will become stressed by different things and
have varying levels of ability to manage stress when it occurs.

Highly engaged individuals collaborate with their colleagues to continually

improve an organisation’s productivity (Bakker, Albrecht and Leiter, 2011). So
poor performance could be a symptom of a team-level problem, which often
arise from emotional intelligence gaps.

Employees who know what they need to accomplish are 6 times more
likely to be engaged by their jobs.
Gallup, 2020

HOW CAN YOU REENGAGE POOR PERFORMERS?

Capture detailed insights into how comfortable your
employees are in understanding and managing their own
and others’ emotions. This includes their capacity to Highly engaged
manage stress and relationships, and their intrinsic levels individuals collaborate
of adaptability and self-motivation. with their colleagues
to continually improve
These insights gained from a simple emotional an organisation’s
intelligence assessment offer a new language that can productivity.
help facilitate a discussion about how best to support
your employees. An employee’s emotional intelligence
report can also be used to identify development
opportunities that will lead to improved performance.

All people have innate qualities that enable them to excel in particular
ways. Matching those strengths to task or role can create extraordinary
performance outcomes. Gallup, 2018

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

4 ATTRITION
Organisations with high levels of engagement and motivation
have 40% lower attrition on average than organisations with low
engagement scores (Kelly Index, 2013).

High company-wide attrition can heighten uncertainty within

your organisation and even incite mass panic, compounding the
issue. So it is essential to take preventative action to increase
happiness and wellbeing at the earliest sign of increased
attrition. High company-wide
attrition can heighten
uncertainty within
HOW CAN YOU MITIGATE ATTRITION? your organisation.

Using an employee engagement assessment can help you

to understand trends and patterns of engagement, along
with the spread of management styles in your organisation.
An engagement assessment will help you to uncover issues
that may be impacting productivity and wellbeing and identify your
organisation’s strengths and opportunity areas. Data from the assessment
can also help you review performance and engagement levels with your
senior management team and direct development and engagement
initiatives to achieve the optimal outcome.

70% of an individual’s engagement level is determined by their relationship

with their manager, the person who has the most direct impact on their
day to day. Gallup, 2018

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

5 LACK OF COLLABORATION
Employees who are encouraged to work in teams deliver 19%
higher sales and a 7% increase in customer engagement, so a lack
of organisational collaboration does major damage to your bottom
line (Gallup, 2020).

Cognitive diversity increases profitability by up to 35% (McKinsey, 2017),

putting businesses with siloed and disengaged employees at a significant
disadvantage. The success of collaborative problem solving is
strongly influenced by group dynamics (Steinberg and
Andrews-Todd, 2018).

Equip line managers with

personality assessments for
HOW CAN YOU ENHANCE their direct reports so that
COLLABORATION? they can understand and
Assessing company-wide engagement enables you better manage their teams.
to boost motivation through employee-led initiatives
developed from the key survey findings. Equip line
managers with personality assessments for their direct reports
so that they can understand and better manage their teams.

Keep communicating about these development areas using the shared

language from the assessments to discuss soft skills. Composite team reports
can help to uncover team dynamics that may be inhibiting engagement and
motivation.

You can also address work relationship issues, by using an emotional

intelligence assessment. This identifies opportunities for individuals to improve
the way that they manage emotions, helping to remove barriers and increase
team motivation.

Highly motivated groups spend 40-50% of their time on collaborative

problem solving. Steinberg and Andrews-Todd, 2018

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION

10 CORE INDICATORS OF HIGH ENGAGEMENT

AND MOTIVATION

How do you know when your employees are engaged and motivated?
According to leading organisational psychologist Mark Slaski, a highly
engaged employee:

1 Displays a positive attitude and behaviour

2 Is loyal to the organisation
3 Is willing to go the extra mile
4 Understands organisational vision and goals
5 Harnesses great working relationships
6 Takes pride in their work
7 Advocates for the organisation
8 Feels heard and empowered to share ideas
9 Knows what is expected of them
10 Looks for opportunities to learn and grow

ENGAGEMENT & MOTIVATION Part of the Thomas International TEN MINUTE TAKEAWAYS series
 ENGAGEMENT &
MOTIVATION IN
THE REAL WORLD

Employee engagement is a top priority for Pure

Retirement as an organisation. Their commitment to
engaging and motivating their employees is evident
from their Engage survey results of 77% in 2021, nearly
double the industry average.

As a leading Equity Release Mortgage Provider, Pure

Retirement run regular employee and leadership
workshops on team building, succession planning,
development, and even on emotional resilience. Pure
Retirement bases their team building workshops on the
behavioural profiles of individuals within their teams,
which helps to encourage effective communication and
cohesion.
Pure Retirement’s suite of Learning and Development
programs and annual Engage review help them to
ensure that they are the gold standard for employee
engagement and motivation through their commitment
to their people.
PURE LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
Siemens’ senior leadership team has unusually high
engagement levels, with 0% reporting low engagement
in a 2021 survey.
The managers of every department in the firm were
also classed as ‘Participative.’
The Kenton Group tried piloting a basic
engagement survey to gain an insight into their
staff, however the survey did not provide the
depth of insights needed to create effective
action plans.
After learning about the reliability of Thomas
assessments, the management team decided
to run a comprehensive “health check” on the
workforce by using the Thomas Engage Survey,
which provided them with a 3D map of employee
within the organisation.
As Vicki Meacham, Chief Financial Officer at
the Kenton Group put it, “Once everyone had
completed the Engage survey, the results were
presented back to management, revealing strong
development points for us as a team.” Sharing the
report across the business “ensured all employees
had a full understanding of the positive actions
we were taking in order to improve our current
culture.
THE KENTON GROUP

Siemens achieved these results by encouraging

constructive feedback through the Thomas 360
questionnaire, within the context of a diverse and
inclusive company culture.

SIEMENS
OUR
ASSESSMENTS
Psychometric assessments provide an objective source of rich
information about the capabilities and skill gaps within your workforce.
They can help to inform hiring, succession and development decisions,
and provide a means of mapping the talent within your organisation.
Start developing your talent pipeline today.

PERSONALITY
Our Personality assessment is grounded in the ‘Big 5’ model, assessing
traits that predict professional success and risk for derailment. With
their personality profile, you can identify candidates with the highest
potential for workplace success and achievement.

APTITUDE
The General Intelligence or Aptitude assessment provides an objective
picture of a candidate or employee’s speed of cognition and learning.
The assessment can also assist in removing bias from recruitment
processes and widening your talent pool.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Our Emotional Intelligence assessment measures 15 emotional traits
concerning wellbeing, self-control, emotionality and sociability. These
traits will help you to provide targeted support that will enhance your
highfliers’ ability to deliver organisational outcomes.

BEHAVIOUR
Our Behavioural assessment provides deep insights into a person’s
behavioural preferences, strengths, limitations and communication
style. This helps to increase self-awareness and provides a vocabulary
for discussing nuanced behavioural dynamics.

ENGAGE
Our Employee Engagement assessment establishes the level of
engagement within your organisation, and identifies strategies to
improve employee wellbeing, motivation and productivity. This helps
to identify the areas in which to focus engagement initiatives.

Visit Thomas.co now for more information.

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and Motivation Performing during and Inclusion changing skill shortage.
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Resignation.

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guide further, or find out how we can work together to develop your people strategy,
please reach out to your customer success manager.

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© Thomas International Ltd 2022. Founded in 1981, Thomas International transforms the
performance of organisations around the world through smarter people decisions, looking
beyond just skills and experience to identify the true potential and capability of people. Its talent
assessment platform combines technology, psychology and data to make the complex nature of
human behaviour, aptitude and personality easier for everyone to understand. Today, Thomas
helps over 11,000 companies across 140 countries unleash the power of their people.