Slight increase in employee engagement among top employers: Survey

Cisco Canada, EllisDon and Bennett Jones top the list of Aon Hewitt's 50 Best Employers in Canada for 2013.

The employers were chosen from a group of 280 employers, based primarily on creating and sustaining a highly engaged workforce. And the 2013 survey revealed employees were slightly more satisfied with their pay . However, they were less satisfied with processes at their workplace.

The average engagement score for the 2013 Best Employers in Canada was 79 per cent, an increase of one percentage point from last year. The average for other participants in the study was 60 per cent, said Aon Hewitt.

Overall industry averages shifted in some key sectors since last year. Real estate and law firms were up strongly, by four and five percentage points, respectively, while the largest declines were in construction, engineering and pharmaceuticals, down four percentage points.

The quality of coaching, recognition and motivation provided by managers is critical to building and sustaining high engagement, said Neil Crawford, Aon Hewitt's leader of the Best Employers in Canada study.

"High employee engagement is strongly correlated with a range of productivity-related measures such as revenue per employee, absenteeism and turnover," he said. "Highly engaged employees have slightly more than one-half of the absenteeism of disengaged employees. This translates into an average difference of about six days per employee per year. If the total annual employee cost is $40,000, the productivity savings for high engagement could be as high as $1,000 per employee, per year from absenteeism alone."

50 Best Employers in Canada