Given today’s skills shortage and increasingly candidate-driven labor market, it’s more important than ever to create strong relationships with your employees. It’s essential to understand how employee engagement can contribute to the success of the company and what you can do to prioritize this aspect.
Strong employee engagement has long been linked to improvements in areas such as staff turnover, productivity, and attendance. Gallup reports that highly engaged workplaces exhibit 21% greater profits, 41% reduction in absenteeism, and 59% less turnover.
Despite these benefits, many employers find it difficult to achieve and maintain high employee engagement. If your company wants to achieve better results in recruitment as well as personnel management, it may be a good idea to consider the following essential employee engagement elements.
Your Expectations
If you want to see your workforce more engaged, you need to help them set specific personal goals. This provides employees with a sense of purpose and direction, helping to motivate and engage them in their work. Setting goals can also help to boost employee engagement by providing a sense of accomplishment when those goals are achieved.
Managers need to ensure that each KPI is in line with the overarching goals and vision of their company. After your employees understand the business goals of your company, empower them to determine their KPIs. This strategy is great for encouraging employee creativity and new ideas.
If you want to ensure that your employees do a great job, then effective training is essential. But before signing up for training, you should do a training analysis to identify the knowledge gaps in your company. Use a training needs analysis template to save time and be sure to cover all bases. This type of analysis will also help you identify programs that are relevant and beneficial for your employees’ daily work.
Enhance Teamwork
Engagement increases when employees work as a group and cross departments. Most projects today include cross-departmental collaboration. However, the rise of hybrid and distant work has made collaboration a lot more difficult.
If remote workers are to collaborate and stay productive, they need to be able to communicate effectively in any environment. They need online meeting spaces and tools to coordinate their efforts.
It may be advantageous to bring together distant teams for quarterly business reviews (QBRs). Even if you can get the job done with virtual communication, it’s still important to bring teams together for an in-person quarterly business reviews meeting.
Offer Growth Opportunities
Employee engagement is a two-way street. If you want your employees to be engaged and invested in the company, the company must also be engaged and invest in its employees. Today’s engaged employees want to know that their company offers career development and training opportunities within the organization.
Many studies have shown that workers around the world believe that continuing education and development programs are important to their future careers. Additionally, the majority of workers want to use their newly acquired skills and experience to grow in their existing roles.
You can use career development and training opportunities to strengthen employee engagement and a sense of commitment to the company. It’s important to develop a program for reskilling and upskilling that is transparent, neutral, and accessible to everyone. If employees are not involved, your efforts can backfire and create barriers to engagement.
Listen to Your Employees
There is no perfect manager, workplace, or employer. Everyone makes mistakes, and even if your goal is to increase employee engagement, there are still things you might do that they don’t like or appreciate.
In such situations, the best thing to do is to talk to them. Communication with employees is key to increasing employee engagement. Instead of guessing, they will tell you exactly what they need and want.
Sending out regular engagement surveys is one way to show that you are willing to listen. You can do this either weekly, monthly, or annually. It’s best to send out these surveys as often as you can. When it comes to employee surveys, the most important thing is to listen to what they have to say. Demonstrate that you’re willing to change and improve the work environment of your employees. They’ll be more engaged if they can see that you are making an effort.
However, workplace surveys aren’t your only option for gathering feedback. You can also help by having an ‘open-door’ policy for all your employees. Let them know that they’re free to contact you with any concerns, questions, or issues they may have.
Think About Employee Recognition
Recognizing your employees is a key element if you want to build a solid foundation for engagement. Employee recognition boosts confidence and gives employees a sense of purpose, making their work more meaningful. Recognition also reinforces the sense of belonging because it encourages workers to feel a collective and individual attachment to their company.
The feeling of belonging and recognition are two levers that companies can use to retain employees. If they feel recognized and happy, they will not look elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
Employee engagement is an important element in any company. It’s the level of enthusiasm and commitment that employees have towards their work and the company they work for. By identifying expectations, enhancing teamwork, and thinking about employee recognition, organizations can ensure that their employees remain motivated, productive, and engaged at work.