Over the years, more and more employers are implementing employee engagement programs to boost employee moral and productivity. With many employers believing that a happy employee is a productive employee, it is no wonder that employers try their hardest to provide the best working environment possible for their workforce.

Afterall, employees are the heart and soul of a company and should be considered as the most valuable asset of a company. However, employee engagement programs are not always successful. Sometimes it backfires in the most unexpected ways and fails to keep the employees from being engaged.

According to a research performed by EMPLOYEEapp, only 37 percent of the 71 percent surveyed employers running employee engagement programs believe that their employees are actively engaged. Another research concluded that there is no direct connection between employee engagement and employee performance.

An article from Entrepreneur postulates that those companies having low employee engagement are probably already so detached from their employees. Instead of blindly, and sometimes forcedly, ordering employees to attend random training and development seminars, the employer needs to first understand what their employees want and to learn what their employees are interested in. Once the employer determines these factors, they can initiate an employee engagement program that is focused on training and development based on what employees find both interesting and beneficial. Only then can genuine employee engagement be achieved. And genuine employee engagement leads to job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction has been linked to increased productivity, lower health care and attrition cost. According to Michelle Gielan, a partner at the San Antonio, Texas-based positive psychology consulting firm GoodThink, "When you prioritize happiness in the workplace, we've seen other measures increase as well."

When utilized effectively, employee engagement programs can boost the morale and productivity of employees. Employers certainly do not need experts to tell them that an engaged employee is an employee who can be expected to get his or her job done in a satisfactory manner.