Jon Hardwick, managing director of UK distributor Grafton International, spoke at Spa Life UK in Stratford-upon-Avon last week about how employee engagement creates delighted customers.

According to Hardwick, building an environment in which people can prosper is key to a successful business. That means employees must have a clear mission and purpose in their work.

“(Employees) believe in the purpose of what they’re doing, because management has shared it with them,” said Hardwick. “Recruit people who will get behind that cause and weed out those who won’t...You are doing nobody any favours by leaving people inside a company who are not happy to be there.”

Disengaged employees don’t just affect themselves, but can poison an entire company, Hardwick suggested.

“They’re like ‘mood vacuums,’” said Hardwick. “They can come into a room of positive people and vacuum out all the energy. Disengaged people are really difficult to work alongside.”

For managers and leaders, Hardwick said it’s important to give those employees who are performing an environment in which they feel safe.

“It is our job as managers to create that circle of safety around our team,” said Hardwick. “They need to be safe in the knowledge that we’ve got their back. We need to support the individual always, even when we don’t support the action.”

Great people will make mistakes, said Hardwick, and it’s important to solve those mistakes with your employees.

“It should be me and you, dealing with a problem – not me versus you,” he explained.

When employees do have that circle of safety and support, and a purpose in their work, then they will be more engaged, and Hardwick said Gallup research suggests that companies with the best employee engagement also had the highest profitability.

He suggested surveying employees to discover how engaged they are, then focusing on areas in which your company can improve – though also looking closely at areas in which you succeed.

“Great companies aren’t great because they do everything very well,” he reminded the audience, “but because they do one thing spectacularly well.”