10 Lessons We Learned From These Incredible Quotes About Employee Engagement
Making sure employees feel valued is especially important in times of uncertainty. Here's what we learned about the urgency of putting people first from these quotes about employee engagement.
At Cooleaf, we know that employee engagement matters. Not only do engaged employees create happier teams but it impacts all aspects of the business.
In fact, Gallup reports that highly engaged workforces are 14% more productive, which in turn boosts revenue.
While we could go on and on about the list of benefits of highly engaged employees, we thought we’d share our favorite employee engagement quotes from our partners and experts that show you just how powerful it can be.
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Wait. Why are we looking at employee engagement right now?
Before we dive in, let’s take a step back. Today’s workplace isn’t what employees 20 or even five years ago experienced.
Since the 2020 Pandemic expedited remote work culture, organizations had to haphazardly adapt to working from home, resulting in high levels of burnout as work and home life began to blend.
Then in May 2020, the wake of George Floyd’s death spurred race and discrimination discussions in our communities, leading many organizations to look deeper into their equity and inclusion moving forward.
This is all to say that organizations and people began to reevaluate how work played into their lives and not the other way. The growing importance of mental health, work-life balance, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) began to resonate for individuals as employees and job seekers. And companies sought to provide.
Since 2020, organizations have been searching for ways to empower their people and help employees feel supported. Not burnt out. Not unheard. But like humans, worthy of respect.
Profitability and creating experiences for the best customers continue to be a priority, but new workplace models like work-from-home and the four-day workweek redefine how organizations can encourage great work.
A company’s greatest asset, is, after all, the people.
“Now, your employees are choosing whether your [the Company] mission is aligned with your values. Those things are structural now,” said Prem Bhatia, co-founder of Cooleaf discussing 2023 trends on The Great Retention Podcast.
So, how do highly engaged employees impact an organization’s team culture? Read these employee engagement quotes from our partners to learn more.
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1. Employee Recognition Fosters a Culture of Innovation
“It’s ridiculously cool to see the team give words of affirmation daily that encourages our team to continue to be innovative, solve complex problems, and bring new ideas to the table all with being empowered through connection and recognition.”
— Ashley Martin, People Operations Generalist at FluentStream.
According to workplace consultant Spring Street, creativity thrives when employees feel supported and confident. After all, sharing your ideas (big and small!) can feel intimidating, especially if you’re not feeling connected to your company culture.
As Steve Jobs often said, innovation makes leaders, so fostering a safe space for people to bring ideas creates opportunities for everyone to lead.
Employee recognition starts with highlighting great work. Download our free Employee Spotlight guide to get started!
2. Invest in Your People, They’ll Invest in You
Leadership expert Simon Sinek wrote it best: “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” This means going beyond paychecks (though, that’s a big incentive too!) to support your people.
Cooleaf partner, Aprio, utilizes the app to help employees do just that. They host volunteer events, fun online activities, and peer-to-peer recognitions. But they also keep up and celebrate organizational wins and good news organization-wide. This trickles into their work as a whole.
“I love how easy and fun it is to encourage employee engagement to our employees."
"By using the platform [Cooleaf], our employees are engaging in our culture and making our company a better place to work without even thinking about it. With Cooleaf, we have a platform where we can interact in challenges, sign up for events, view birthdays and anniversaries, and see all the good that's going on across the firm."
"Having a platform for nothing BUT positivity creates an overall positive feeling for all of our employees which translates into the way employees act with each other and their clients.”
— Emily Holt, People and Culture Specialist at Aprio
3. In Times of Big Change, Your People Are Your Biggest Asset
“Cooleaf has been a valuable tool to support and facilitate cultural integration efforts and create one social platform for employees. We have leveraged it to encourage community, bolster our recognition programs, and reinforce safety and D&I initiatives."
"With the onset of COVID, 50% of our employee base went remote. We have over 550 employees in nearly 20 states. Staying connected, engaged and empathetic of what each of us was experiencing was never more critical…Cooleaf enabled that.”
— Cynthia Kenny, Chief Human Resources at Stateserv.
Renowned business leader and former Campbell’s CEO Doug Conant says that trust gives you the permission to help people feel aligned and give them the energy to succeed. It’s a quote that resonates with Stateserv, which, as a healthcare organization, experienced intense stress and burnout when the Pandemic hit.
Utilizing platforms like Cooleaf, Cynthia and her team found ways to keep morale up and teams informed in an authentic way.
Your people are your best asset. Make sure they're healthy. Download the Employee Wellbeing checklist to get started!
5. Holistic Employee Engagement Creates Stronger Hybrid and Remote Teams
“Cooleaf helps us to bring all of our engagement initiatives together into one place. This has completely changed the game for us and made it so much easier to manage and measure our employee engagement. Being able to see the whole picture of our team’s engagement has helped us to make more informed decisions in all areas of our firm."
"Cooleaf helps us to engage everyone at the same level and time. Remote workers and in-office employees can now have the same experience and feel much more connected to their teammates.”
— Hannah Posthauer, People & Culture Associate at Frazier & Deeter
We’re in a highly competitive world with many organizations offering flexible remote or hybrid options for job seekers today. However, organizations continue to struggle with hang-ups of remote work— the inability to unplug, communication styles, and loneliness.
The Zinger Model, developed by David Zinger, shows us that no matter the role or the type of work, employees achieve when companies help foster connection.
Combining community within the organization, and pairing it with our individual development, helps the business and the employee achieve parallel success. In a similar way, it’s what brings Frazier & Deeter positive results as they look at the whole picture to support their remote and in-person teams.
6. When You’re on the Same Page About Core Values, You’re on the Same Page About Success
“Cooleaf has been a great tool to help us reinforce our greater purpose and core values with our team members. By implementing challenges that reflect our values, we have been able to recognize team members who demonstrate a commitment to living by them."
"Since bringing Cooleaf into our organization, our employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) has improved from 18 to 84, and we have won Top Workplaces and Best and Brightest Companies to Work For awards the past 2 years. I do think Cooleaf has had a part in that."
— Veanne Smith, Co-CEO at SolTech
Providing the right tools like core values and helping your team understand what success looks like in your organization is key to any successful action plan.
As you develop your own employee engagement action plan, work with your people to develop your employee experience. You want to hear from both engaged and disengaged employees so you can iterate and make your workplace a place to be.
7. Workplace Incentives Offer a Sense of Purpose
"A number of employee incentive solutions exist in the market. We use Cooleaf. It enables us to incentivize staff around any objective that's paired with a task. Want to encourage people to take better care of themselves? They can earn Cooleaf points for their steps. Motivate them to read more. Post summaries of reads for points. Same with recruitment. Receive points for networking, introductions, etc."
— Dean Trevelino, Trevelino/Keller
Employee engagement expert Ian Hutchinson said that “Your number one customers are your people. Look after employees first and then customers last.”
Workplace incentives are a great way to put rewards behind your organization’s values. Do you value employee health and wellness? Encourage employees to take time for themselves and their health. Want to encourage individuals to own their work? Create task-based or even goal-based incentives to help celebrate the end goal.
McKinsey surveyed a thousand employees on workplace purpose and saw that helping your people embrace their individual contributions can give a sense of purpose, which encourages them to stay longer and feel more fulfilled.
8. Employee Engagement Emphasizes What’s Important
"Cooleaf is our strategic partner for our engagement strategy. The platform helps to facilitate and communicate all the great things our colleagues experience. It creates energy, excitement through challenges, events and educational opportunities. It rewards and recognizes all of the hard work they do each and every day."
"Reinforcing our diversity, equity and inclusion strategy brings forward opportunities to learn about others and encourage their differences."
— Nicole Amling, Senior VP of HR at Navvis Healthcare
Upholding employee connection and goals within diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) doesn’t directly contribute to a business’s cash flow but it does drive toward overall success and supports your people.
Writer of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen R. Covey might tell you that, as a whole, we spend too much on what’s urgent and not enough on what’s important. He’s right.
The group of people in your organization won’t remember the quarterly goals or the profit margin from last year. Instead, they’ll take away how they felt. Proud to be part of an organization that puts DEI first? Confident that my organization invests in my own development?
Navvis does, and because of it, they have stronger teamwork and participation from their people.
9. Great Culture Drives Great Results
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GE CEO Jack Welch will tell you that good culture drives results, and Cooleaf partner American Auto Shield follows that mantra.
They consistently put their people first, from hosting recurring check-ins with new talent contracts to launching a new learning and development program.
What’s more, the organization tracks engagement metrics to measure ROI and find room for opportunity.
“Cooleaf gives me a new idea every day! I’m always thinking about how I can freshen things up and do even more to get our people engaged. With Cooleaf, I have new ways to collect feedback. The platform helps me to think about how I can better the culture of our organization through the power of consistency.”
“We’ve been able to implement things with Cooleaf that we just didn’t have before. The best part is being able to quantify initiatives and see their success over time.”
— Jennifer Franklin, Employee Engagement Manager, American Auto Shield
10. Putting Humanitarian Needs First Starts with Putting Your People First
“Cooleaf helps us be us— better.
"We kept this initiative going all year. In the end, we helped around 100 students and collected around $500. Cooleaf made that happen! Without Cooleaf, I don’t think we would have had the same response."
"Cooleaf helps humanize your peers by allowing you to see inside their lives and understand them. Cooleaf is a great host for those sorts of humanizing interactions.”
- Matt Samuels, Employee Engagement Manager, MountainSeed
MountainSeed had a thriving team culture before Cooleaf. Once they adopted the platform? Their people-forward culture soared to new heights.
In one heartfelt example, team members used Cooleaf points to redeem gift cards and supplies for a school supply drive. It was a natural extension of MountainSeed’s mission to help its community. Alongside the charitable giving, they use Cooleaf to house a DEI resource for local minority-owned businesses to support.
Francis Hesselbein, the late CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, said it best, “A single person doesn't change an organization, but culture and good people do. It is what we do with our lives that counts.”
When you put your people first, it causes a rippling effect that goes beyond supporting your customers. It supports all the stakeholders, from your people, their families, and their communities too.
What Does Tomorrow’s Employer Look Like?
Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, understood that people achieved success best when they had fun doing it. So why not host that pet day challenge or launch a step competition? Create a work meme or encourage team members to connect outside their department.
Sure work is, well, work. But people are still, well, people.
Supporting the people within your workplace means respecting their needs as human beings, and offering opportunities for them to grow and thrive. After all–they’re your organization’s best asset.
