Employee engagement is an approach which is intended to achieve the right workplace conditions for all staff members. These conditions should allow employees to complete high quality work and commit to the values and goals of the company. The idea is that employees feel engaged in their roles, and feel that their wellbeing needs are fulfilled.
Staff turnover can be expensive, yet by improving engagement, you’ll automatically reduce turnover and the associated costs. According to Balance, one of the top reasons that employees quit their jobs is ‘ lack of contribution of their work to the organization’s business goals.’ Another key reason is being ‘bored and unchallenged by the work itself.’ Efforts to improve engagement can help to resolve both of these issues. Let’s consider several employee engagement ideas to drive success.
1 . Check Out Engagement Software
To support your progress, there are lots of different companies that offer engagement software. Here are a few top picks to get you started.
- Lattice Performance Management: Lattice is a type of ‘people management platform’, supporting business owners to develop engaged teams. Using Lattice, you can share feedback, employee recognition, create goals, provide engagement surveys, and access useful analytics.
- Kudos: Kudos is a type of employee recognition software, helping companies to celebrate the achievements of their peers. Employee recognition should be a key part of any employee engagement plan. The software works as a private social network; you can use it to connect your staff, uphold your values, and improve company culture.
- Peakon: Peakon is a type of employee success tool, that works by converting feedback into actionable insights. With Peakon, you can monitor employee engagement and also access personalized training tips. Peakon makes it simple for employees to voice their opinions and gain useful feedback.
- Celebrate Out Of Work Achievements
To improve employee engagement, it’s helpful to celebrate out of work achievements, as well as achievements at work. Plan a catch up each week where employees can share their achievements, hobbies, personal goals and so on. Helping employees to become further engaged isn’t just about workplace activities. It’s about ensuring that staff feel valued, on a personal level, beyond their workplace role.
- Provide A Great Wellness Program
Employees are more likely to be engaged when they are satisfied with work-life overall. An employee might love their role, and find it incredibly rewarding, but that doesn’t mean that they are immune to workplace stress. To help employees to remain physically and mentally healthy, it’s important to provide a wellness program. You might like to consider using the following wellness applications:
- Welltok: Welltok is a health management application designed for businesses. The application can support staff to track progress and create wellbeing goals. Welltok uses games and quizzes to make the experience more enjoyable. Staff can use the platform to improve their physical, mental, financial, and social wellbeing.
- Wellable: Wellable is a platform which can support businesses to design holistic wellness programs. There are plenty of wellness activities here, all designed to help staff to be happier, healthier, and more productive.
With the right business wellness program, you’ll support your staff in the workplace and beyond.
- Mutually Beneficial Mentorship Programs
Offering mutually beneficial mentorship programs can help your company in many ways. So how exactly can you approach mentorship programs? First off, you’ll need to create mentorship pairs within your organization. You’ll need to ensure that both people in the mentorship have the chance to learn new things from one another. For example, you might pair up your marketers and your developers, it’s likely that both parties will gain insights that can help them with their day-to-day duties. There are plenty of benefits to creating mentorship programs, including:
- Free training for your employees
- Develop a stronger company culture
- Upskill your staff
- Ensure that your employees feel supported and valued
- Promote Work-Life Balance
Too much overtime can negatively impact engagement, lead to burnout, and compromise performance. As an employer, you should actively promote work-life balance in the following ways:
- Ensure that staff are retaining a healthy schedule without excessive overtime.
- The workload should be evenly distributed between all team members.
- Allow flexible shift patterns and work weeks so that staff can manage their own time.
- Make allowances for out of work commitments, showing your employees that they are valued.
- Develop Unique CSR Programs
CSR refers to ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’; it’s a type of business practice with the intention of contributing or giving back to society through charitable or activistcauses. It can also refer to the ethical practices that exist within your organization itself.
When you develop unique CSR Programs, you can help to improve employee engagement at the same time. Many people prefer to work for a company who they feel are making a difference to society, and working towards meaningful goals. By developing your business goals in line with CSR strategies, you can help your employees to feel more satisfied within their roles. Whether it’s social justice, the environment or politics, CSR programs can also improve your reputation and branding.
- Consider Your Working Environment
When you’re focusing on employee engagement, you should also consider your working environment. The fact is, the environments we work in have a direct impact on our wellbeing, performance, and sense of commitment to our company. When you are improving your working environment, it can be useful to focus on the following areas:
- Health & Safety: Most importantly, employers should prioritize a healthy and safe workplace, whether it’s risk assessments, air purifying devices, or ergonomic workstations. It’s advisable to call in the help of an ergonomic evaluation specialist, to create the perfect space.
- Aesthetics: Creating an attractive working environment makes all the difference to performance and engagement.
- Adapt To Working Styles: Provide different types of workstations to support different working styles. You might like to add standing desks, under desk bikes, collaborative areas, and so on.
- Opportunities For Development
To improve employee engagement within your company, you should provide your staff with development opportunities. You might like to pay for them to take vocational courses to help improve their performance? Perhaps you’d like to offer workshops for new skills or networking opportunities?
Above all, ensure that you set up regular feedback sessions to ask your employees how they feel within their role. Invite your staff to suggest any extra support they need, and to discuss their goals within your company. When all of your staff have a roadmap to success, you’ll boost levels of workplace satisfaction.
- Consider A Social Side
You’ll want your staff to feel satisfied within your organization as a whole. To keep engagement levels high, it’s a great idea to encourage a social aspect to your company. Creating regular social activities can help to improve staff relationships and improve your company culture at the same time. To comply with current COVID-19 restrictions, you can just as easily host online social events, whether it’s Zoom quizzes or virtual drinks. When your staff have healthy relationships, teamwork will likely be stronger, resulting in better quality projects.
- Empower Your Staff
One of the best ways to engage your employees is to empower them, but how can you do this? Aim to create autonomous teams, providing your staff with more responsibility.
Autonomous teams are teams that are afforded the independence to set working procedures and goals. The idea is that independence allows for more creativity, satisfaction and engagement. When you develop autonomous teams, you’ll see what your staff can really do, plus improve levels of collaboration.
- Show Employees Results
Employee engagement is all about ensuring that employees are committed to the vision of the organization. So how can you achieve this? One idea is to show employees the results, show them how their efforts are making a difference. Create a visual representation of their role, using a chart or graph, and demonstrate how their work contributes to the common goals.
- Provide Employee Perks
Perks of the job can help to boost engagement levels, so which kind of perks should you offer? For a few ideas, check out the following:
- Healthcare Plans: Offering a good healthcare plan is one of the most sought after employee perks. By offering healthcare, you can prioritize staff well being and reduce sick days.
- Flexible Working Arrangements: Whether it’s remote working, or flexible hours, providing your staff with more freedom is a great way to boost engagement.
- Incentives For Meeting Goals: It can be useful to provide incentives for meeting goals. You might even like to create a little healthy competition between your teams!
- Create Learning Opportunities
As far as possible, create opportunities for your employees to learn new things. Whether it’s setting up book clubs, bringing in guest speakers, or putting on special workshops. When employees feel bored and uninspired, it’s unlikely that engagement levels will rise. By ensuring a continuous learning process, you’ll make sure that employees feel creative and motivated.
With these simple ideas behind you, you’ll ensure that you boost engagement levels, improve productivity and increase your ROI. It’s not always easy to keep all staff happy, but with a targeted effort, you’ll soon see great results.