Employers today widely agree that an engaged workforce is good for business, but they continue to struggle with how to build and sustain engagement among employees - especially when their organizations span different countries and cultures.
Analysis of global workplace research into employee attitudes and perceptions, conducted by Mercer in 22 countries to date, provides useful insights into this growing challenge. The research shows that those factors contributing to employee engagement not only vary between countries but also between different employing organizations. It also notes that general attitudes toward workplace issues are more positive in some cultures than in others, while specific factors such as pay, benefits and work-life balance are considered more important in some countries than others.
"In today's demanding global business environment, employers want employees who are not just satisfied, but truly engaged in their work and the success of the organization, said Dr. Patrick Gilbert, a principal and employee research expert at Mercer. "We characterize engaged employees as those who feel a vested interest in their employers' success and who perform at levels that exceed their stated job requirements. These employees willingly contribute discretionary effort that helps to drive business performance and establish a source of competitive advantage.
Why context counts
Mercer's research, highlighted in the paper, Engaging employees to drive global business success, shows that, when it comes to employee engagement, context counts. "The drivers of engagement vary from country to country and from company to company - even within companies, the drivers will vary across different businesses and functional areas, Dr. Gilbert said. "That's why it's important for employers to identify and manage the unique drivers of engagement within their own organizations. This way they can achieve maximum return on investment for their HR spending.
Companies get a sense of their own workforce's engagement levels and drivers through research, typically in the form of employee surveys. Mercer's What's Working" studies serve as a normative database for comparing and interpreting an individual company's survey findings. This allows the organization to identify issues and follow up with interventions that will have the greatest impact on employee engagement - and ultimately on business performance.
Mercer's research illustrates the challenge in achieving the right interpretation of employee surveys in the absence of normative data. For example, employees responding to Mercer's study gave an overall favorable rating of 57 percent to the 130-plus study questions (see Exhibit 1). Countries such as India, Mexico and China had much higher overall favorable ratings, while countries such as Japan, Korea and Portugal had much lower overall favorable ratings.
"Employee research has long documented consistent cultural differences across countries. When an organization looks at its own employee survey data, it needs to take these differences into account, Dr. Gilbert said. "Without the benefit of this perspective, it could reach an incorrect interpretation - perhaps assuming that there are significant issues among its Japanese workforce and few issues with its Mexican workforce when, in fact, employee survey scores simply tend to be lower in Japan and higher in Mexico.
Differences in local engagement drivers
Mercer's research also provides insights regarding the drivers of engagement by culture. Analysis conducted across all the data identified the top drivers of engagement for each of the 22 countries. It shows that the drivers vary considerably - but not in ways that might always be expected.
"Even when workplace characteristics are shared - such as English as a first language - differences in national culture, the state of economic development and market conditions can have a significant influence on employee expectations and perceptions of the workplace and, subsequently, on employee engagement, Dr. Gilbert explained.
Employees were asked which of 12 factors most influenced their engagement at work (see Exhibit 2). Overall, respect was identified as having the strongest impact on engagement globally, and was the top factor noted by employees in the UK and US. It is notable that Japan's workforce considers this much less significant, however.
Workers in France and India cited the type of work as the strongest driver of engagement. In Japan, employees rate base pay as most important, while in China, benefits came top of the list. German workers, meanwhile, cited the people they work with as the strongest factor.
Employees across the world also consider a healthy work-life balance to be an important driver of engagement. The exceptions here are workers in China and India, who place less importance on this factor. Being able to provide good customer service is also a strong driver globally, especially in the UK. Meanwhile, workers in Japan say it is the least important of the 12 factors rated.
"In the absence of any other information, focusing on the popular engagement factors would allow a multinational company to address areas that could raise levels of employee engagement, Dr. Gilbert said. "However, because context is so critical, it is more powerful to look at country-specific and organization-specific data to raise levels of engagement. That includes conducting your own employee research and comparing the findings to normative data, analyzing the results to identify the strongest drivers, and then developing a comprehensive action plan to produce the desired changes.
