Employee engagement and productivity are fundamental to the success of any team. Employees who are productive make better use of available resources, and produce a higher quantity and quality of work. Engaged employees, who are connected both emotionally and rationally to their work and work environment, are often more committed to the team and its long-term goals, and tend to work harder. Disengaged employees, on the other hand, can damage morale and obstruct team outcomes through a lack of willingness to communicate. The Lixivium Productivity and Engagement Inventory is designed to measure the relative state of health of both of these important factors across an organisation or within a specific team or department. There has been a wealth of research to indicate that there are a number of factors that can impact on an employee’s overall level of engagement and productivity, and these are measured by this tool.

The results from this tool can be used to address the risk factors that are identified to both productivity and engagement in a way that enhances optimum outcomes.

These are described as follows:

Engagement refers to both the emotional and rational connection that an employee builds with aspects of their work and work environment that have the overall net effect of increasing their job satisfaction, and quite often their length of tenure.
Engaged employees tend to be more committed to the company’s long term goals and more willing to deploy discretionary effort to achieve their objectives. Disengaged employees, on the other hand, tend to give up more easily, have lower levels of morale, and can sabotage team outcomes by lack of willingness to communicate.

The 8 key influences of engagement are:

• Engagement with the Work Itself – is interested in and enjoys the work. Has a sense of purpose.
• Engagement with the Supervisor – enjoys working for supervisor. Feels alignment with supervisor’s values.
• Engagement with the Team – enjoys working for the team. Feels alignment with team’s values.
• Support from Team – team members provide support to one another, and treat each other with respect.
• Team Efficacy – teams are constructed with the right balance of skills and team members are confident in one another’s ability.
• Team Communication – information flows smoothly throughout the team, and team members kept aware of problems and issues faced.
• Engagement with the Organisation – enjoys working for the organisation. Feels a sense of emotional connection to the organisation and its goals.
• Vision and Values – holds an awareness of and alignment with the organisation’s values.

Productivity refers to the total amount of output that each employee produces, both in terms of the quality of work and the quantity produced. In being ‘productive’, an employee makes use of a wide range of resources, needs to make constant decisions, and is guided by the calibre of leadership available, the clarity of their role and rewards that are linked to performance.
Barriers to productivity include a lack of accountability for work produced, too many performance expectations or not enough, and not having the right type or enough resources to do the job required.

The 8 key influences on productivity are:

• Output (quantity and quality) – meets agreed targets in terms of output whilst maintaining a consistently high standard of quality.
• Resources - the calibre and standard of the resources available are high enough so that they do not hinder the employee performing their job on a day to day basis.
• Decision Making – is able to make decisions that impact on the output within the role and is involved in decision making at a higher level when possible.
• Accountability – the employee has both the quality and quantity of their work checked on a regular basis.
• Team Leadership – the team leader motivates their team to perform well and proactively builds skills which enhance performance and productivity.
• Role Clarity – the employee has a clear understanding of what the purpose of their job is and how the specific objectives can be achieved.
• Performance Expectations – the employee understands the expectations of the company in regards to the standards of their work and believes them to be appropriately challenging.
• Reward System – the reward system is fair and equitable and encourages employees to produce more, and higher quality, work.