Relationships and Employee Engagement


Over the past week, many of you have begun digging into the results from the Employee Engagement Survey. As we’ve said before, the numbers are a snapshot into the culture of your area, the experience your team has at work at this moment in time. This data is important for leaders, as it helps us know what our team is experiencing, and gives us insight as to how we can continue our pursuit of excellence in creating a great place to work.

One of the most important things we can do is to continue focusing on those things that create engagement. In a paper published by SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), we find this insight: “According to the SHRM findings, the most important condition of engagement continues to be the relationship with co-workers, followed by opportunities to use employees’ skills and abilities at work, relationship with immediate supervisor and the work itself.” *

We are challenged to continue to focus on relationships within our departments – those between employees and their co-workers, as well as our relationships with employees. These relationships are truly the heart that drives engagement, that creates a place where people love to work.

I love this statement from Called to Lead, Section 2: “Remember as a leader that the caregiver/patient relationship is a reflection of the leader/caregiver relationship.” Building meaningful relationships among the workforce creates an environment where our team can focus on the relationships with our patients.



*Employee Engagement: The Newest Research and Trends. Workplace Visions, Issue 2, 2014. https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/business-solutions/Pages/Employee-Engagement-Survey-Service.aspx

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