For the third year, Temkin Group analyzed the employee engagement efforts within large companies in the report, Employee Engagement Competency & Maturity, 2015. As part of the analysis, hundreds of large companies completed Temkin Group's Employee Engagement Competency & Maturity (EECM) Assessment. While the average score improved, it remains in the second level (out of five levels) of maturity, called "Neglecting."

Previous Temkin Group research shows that an engaged workforce is a critical asset for companies. Compared with disengaged employees, highly engaged employees are 2.5 times as likely to stay at work late if something needs to be done after the normal workday ends, more than 2 times as likely to help someone at work even if they don't ask for help, and more than 3 times as likely to do something good for the company that is not expected of them.

"Companies don't focus enough on cultivating what is likely their most precious asset, employees," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group. "It's great to see companies improving their employee engagement efforts, but there's still a lot of untapped opportunities."

Earlier this month, Temkin Group collected data from 206 respondents who work in companies with 1,000 or more employees. The results of the EECM Assessment place companies into one of six stages of employee engagement maturity. Only 19% of companies ended up in the top two stages of maturity, while 56% are in the lowest two stages. Here are all of the results:

• Maturity stage 1: Damaging (19% of companies)
• Maturity stage 2: Neglecting (37%)
• Maturity stage 3: Maintaining (25%)
• Maturity stage 4: Enhancing (16%)
• Maturity stage 5: Maximizing (3%

Additional highlights from the Employee Engagement Competency & Maturity, 2015 report include:

• The percentage of companies in the top two stages of employee engagement maturity has stayed the same since last year (19%), but the percentage of companies in the lower two stages has declined from 67% in 2014 to 56% on 2015.
• Sixty-nine percent of large companies measure employee engagement at least annually, but only 45% of companies have executives that treat taking action on the results as a high priority.
• We compared companies with more mature employee engagement efforts with those that have less maturity. Seventy-two percent of the more mature companies have above average customer experience compared with 48% of the other companies.
• Seventy-five percent of the more mature companies had better financial performance than their competitors' compared with 50% of companies with lower employee engagement maturity.
• Executives in companies with more mature employee engagement efforts are almost 3.5 times more likely to treat taking action on employee engagement studies as a high priority.
• Companies with more mature employee engagement efforts are more than twice as likely to have their customer experience and HR organizations work together on their employee engagement efforts.

The Employee Engagement Competency & Maturity, 2015 report can be downloaded from the Customer Experience Matters® blog, at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com as well as from the Temkin Group website, www.TemkinGroup.com.

Source: Temkin Group, widely recognized as a leading customer experience research and consulting firm. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or send an Email.