Top management's role key to driving staff engagement: Survey

The role of top management is crucial to employee engagement, but only half of the employers covered in a Towers Watson survey revealed that this is actually happening in their company.
According to the global professional services company, organisations are increasingly expecting employees to take greater responsibility for their own engagement.
The study, which polled 133 of India's top organisations, said 86 per cent of respondents believe that employee engagement is a strategic priority, but only 49 per cent believe this is actually happening in their company.
"While the senior leadership's role is instrumental in keeping its people engaged and motivated, greater collaboration and a far more participative role by employees in aligning themselves to the organisation's vision is the need of the hour," Towers Watson India Practice Leader, Organisational Surveys and Insights Ashish Ambasta said.

A majority 60 per cent of the respondents agreed that employees should take responsibility for their own engagement, signalling a pivotal need for more collaboration in this space, it said.
"Our study clearly indicates that while there is a broad agreement among leaders of the value of employee engagement and the need for measurement, there are significant gaps between obtaining data and knowing what to do with it," Towers Watson India MD Vivek Nath said.
The survey noted that about 61 per cent of the respondents felt employee well-being will eventually become a stronger metric for organisations than engagement.