These days people in every part of the business are asked to do more with less. Headcounts are low and the bar for justifying new expenses is set very high. If you are looking for ways to justify an investment in employee engagement software, we may be able to help. While we there are a host of benefits to be gained from a technology supported approach to employee engagement, today we're going to focus on showing you the money.

Engagement = Improvement = $$$

While some employee engagement software is designed only for the purpose of measuring engagement, we recommend selecting one that is focused on getting employees involved in the company’s continuous improvement efforts. Why? Because engaged employees are more 59% more likely to be innovative and seek to solve problems!  Even better, employees who are actively engaged in a continuous improvement campaign have an average annual financial impact of $6,000. 

Turnover is Expensive

According to the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics, turnover can cost an organization 33% of an employee’s total compensation, including both salary and benefits. Although some turnover is enviable, engagement programs have been shown to combat it. For example, the Society for Human Resource Management found that companies with strategic engagement and recognition program reported a mean employee turnover rate 23.4% lower than retention at companies without such a program.

Engaged Employees are Profitable Employees

A study by Engage for Success looked at the impact of employee engagement on companies’ operations and found that companies with engagement scores in the top 25% reported twice the annual net profit than those with engagement levels in the bottom quarter. The top quarter of companies also enjoyed revenue growth that was 2.5x greater than those in the bottom 25%. Additionally, the study revealed that engaged employees are 18% more productive than their disengaged counterparts.

The Cost of Disengagement

Here are a few more stats to stack the deck in favor of employee engagement software:

• Companies with low levels of employee engagement experience 62% more accidents
• Disengaged employees take fifteen more sick days each year than the average worker
• Disengaged employees are 50% more likely to fail to meet expectations

Once you start doing the math, it becomes apparent that investments in solutions designed to support employee engagement and encourage contributions to improvement and innovation are financial winners. Of course there are other advantages in terms of culture, collaboration and employee satisfaction, but even if you just stick to the bottom line, the case for employee engagement software is strong.