What stood out for you in Employee Engagement last year?

 Here is what stood out for me last year in employee engagement:

The UK Engage for Success Movement. It was incredible to see the UK rally behind employee engagement with the Engage for Success Movement. This ranged from more work on the business case for engagement and a resource rich website to hundreds of events and actions around the UK.  I encourage you to visit the Engage for Success website to learn what they did in 2012 and where they are going in 2013.

Social Media Growth in Employee Engagement. Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook have been buzzing with talk about employee engagement in 2012. I remember five years ago on Twitter when there might be one post on employee engagement every 5 hours and now it can be one every minute.

Employee Engagement Pairings. Many of the large consultancies have been pairing employee engagement with another key variable. For example:

• Gallup = Employee Engagement + Wellbeing
• Hay Group = Employee Engagement + Enablement
• BlessingWhite = Employee Engagement + Energy

Growth the of Employee Engagement Network. The Employee Engagement Network continues to grow at about 20 to 30 members a week and has reached over 5500 members in just under 5 years.

More Books. There have been a lot of books written on employee engagement in 2012 and many books on leadership and management ensure they address employee engagement in their contents. Just a few of the recent books that have landed on my desk in 2012 were:

• Susan Walker, Employee Engagement and Communication Research
• David Bowles and Cary Cooper, The High Engagement Work Culture
• Christopher Rice, Fraser Marlow and Mary Ann Masarech, The Engagement Equation
• Timothy Clark, The Employee Engagement Mindset

Postgraduate Certificate in Employee Engagement. Katie Truss from the University of Kent has lead the way in creating a university certificate in employee engagement.

Searching for Employee Engagement becomes a hit. About eight years ago there were about 200,000 results found when searching “employee engagement” in Google. At the end of 2012 there were:  8, 380,000.

Employee Engagement Humor. John Junson offers a weekly cartoon on employee engagement on the Employee Engagement Network and Dilbert made fun of engagement at least three times last year. We are growing in the ability to take our topic seriously and to take ourselves lightly.

This was a top of mind  list of a few items that stood out for me about employee engagement. What stood out for you in employee engagement in 2012?

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert already scheduled to work in New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Berlin, and Chicago in early 2013. Contact him today to offer education, speaking or consulting services to increase employee engagement where you work.