Today, employee engagement is considered imperative in the business world due to the fact it leads to higher levels of profitability and organisational performance. In today’s business environment, people are a competitive advantage. The South African business environment is volatile, complex, and interconnected. With a declining GDP, retrenchment and restructuring on the rise, and poor labour force participation, building engagement is a viable lever available to South African organisations as a means of creating a healthier labour environment. Improving employee engagement would encourage a more motivated workforce, as well as an increased rate of organisational performance and profitability to drive much-needed GDP growth.

Engaged employees have higher commitment levels. Research attributes high levels of engagement to the following organisational outcomes: customer retention, increased profitability, increased productivity, higher turnover, fewer safety incidents, less shrinkage, less absenteeism, higher quality product. However, while the outcomes for employee engagement are clearly to retain hard-working and high performing employees, while simultaneously keeping profits high, this is becoming increasingly difficult for leaders to do.

Retaining and acquiring high performing employees is critical in today’s turbulent business environment. Stronger management and employee relationships are a crucial component of any employee retention and engagement strategy. For this reason, any initiative related to increasing productivity is futile without leaders taking the necessary steps towards fostering greater engagement levels amongst their employees. Thus, sound leadership is critical in improving employees’ attitude to, and their overall engagement in, the organisation. It is, therefore, important for leaders to consider how their actions affect their employees and the success of their organisation they are in. Today’s organisations require a leadership style that can foster the environment needed for employee engagement to flourish. Leaders need to distance themselves from authoritarian styles of leadership that focus on accumulating and exerting power and move towards a leadership style that serves all stakeholders involved.