Today, the workers are more inclined towards choosing the kind of work they want to do and demand a workplace that keeps them engaged. Are you to take up the challenge? If no, then you are not alone. Many modern business leaders face a daily conundrum, one of the biggest of all is how to engage employees.
Keeping workers engaged at work have to be complicated at times. At ProofHub, when it comes to our workforce, we believe to give our employees the chance to share their passion to help us grow. With a good reason, we believe in employee engagement! So how can do we master this elusive employee engagement?
Have you noticed your workers revealing these deadly symptoms?
- Lack of initiative to grow
- Leaving exactly on time
- Continuously staring at screens for longer than normal
- Social withdrawal
- Moaning about your company
- Taking longer breaks
- Mostly tapping on their phones
If these are the signs, then the situation of employee disengagement should be addressed quickly. There’s something that’s surely sucking the life out of your workforce, that is lack of engagement. Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. up to $605 billion each and every year. And, the companies with low engaged employees have an earning of two and half times less revenue than those companies who are taking care of employee engagement.
The need for engagement
Let us first understand what is employee engagement?
Employee engagement is defined as “the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their organization.” It is how much the employees actually care about their company and their work. Engaged employees lead to better business output. Are you offering what your employees want? Here are some of the evidences showing the strong connection between employee engagement and higher performance:
- At Fortune‘s “100 Best Companies to Work For”, stock prices rose an average of 14 percent per year between 1998 and 2005, compared with 6 percent for the market overall.
- Engaging for Success, a study by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke of over organisations across the UK concluded that the common factors in all these organisations were the Four Enablers of engagement – strategic narrative, engaging managers, employees voice and integrity.
- The Evidence: Wellbeing and Engagement shows why employee engagement and wellbeing matter to workers and help drive better performance outcome.
So, according to the worldwide research, it is clear that increasing employee engagement should always be a priority for leaders seeking success. What does it take for keeping your employees engaged?
A SHRM 2015 Job Satisfaction and Engagement survey discovered the percentage of what workers say makes them connected to their work:
- 79%Relationship with Coworkers
- 75% Meaningfulness of the job
- 74% Opportunities to use skills and abilities
- 76% Contribution of work to business
goals
How to make your employees engaged?
Improving employee engagement may seem tiring for your business, but is is a fruitful process. So, follow these steps to improve employee engagement in your team:
1. Set common goals
Every employee should be clear of what they have to do and how much impact will it bring on the performance of the company. The Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study found that achieving individual goals that are tied to organizational goals is one of the most commonly cited success characteristic. Set the goals that employees can hit quickly. And then discuss and celebrate them to make them proud of their hard work.
2. Be transparent
A trust factor plays an important role between employees and management. It has a direct 94 percent correlation with employee happiness. Without transparency, employees will lack emotional commitment and it leads to trust. Give your employees a sense of ownership and deeper investment in the company. A culture that gives transparency some value breeds engaged employees. Make them clear about:
- How does the task help in the success of the business
- What will be their roles in the project
- How much resources will be allotted to them
- Explain them your decisions
- Make yourself available
- Know when to keep the information to yourself
- Social up with co-workers
These steps will help your company grow and succeed as a team and employees feel like they are more than just a number.
3. Seek feedback
Your employees really need to know they do well and what they don’t, so they can build on it. And how often do you run into the process of getting feedback from your employees? Never? You are likely to miss out on some awesome ideas. Bring out those personalized conversations with your employees to take things a step further. Most of the employees want to work with a boss who considers their opinion and keeps a check on the pulse of how employees are feeling. Here’s how you can survey your employees:
- Set the stage so your people are comfortable in giving the feedback.
- Do it Frequently: “Feedback is a dish best served fresh!”
- Give them an option for anonymous feedback
- Follow up with employees
Seeking employee feedback is a valuable process to prevent problems within the workplace and make changes for the better.
4. Emphasize culture
What kind of culture engages employee in an organization? There is a thing called bad culture or good corporate culture that influences various employees outcome. Emphasizing on culture will give a clear picture of how your organization is running and accelerate your business performance. A research by Deloitte shows how a culture has become an important topic and managers and leaders need to recognize that employees are greatly affected by the culture. When a company looks at the values of any employee in alignment with the culture, the employees are then best at their productivity. Just as the little phrase, “Your vibe attracts your tribe”, your company culture will attract those who will be comfortable in that culture that will lead to a higher level of engagement.
5. Assist with time management
Time management is not a personal thing to look at. You need to fill the gap for your employees to overcome the challenge of managing time. It leaves an impact on everything in your business including the ‘employee engagement’. Provide collaborative tools like ProofHub to help your employees with their path to success by better managing their time. Your employees will no longer struggle with time management and actually be more engaged in a better way for the company.
6. Blending work and play effectively
One of the declared enemy of employee engagement at work is the monotony of overlying tasks in a row. So, blending work with small fun activities for employees can transform a workplace in a long way. Fun activities – indoor or outdoor, will make your employees happy and they will have fun at what they do. Give them a break, do something engaging, they will feel alive and contribute more to the organization. Also, they will feel more comfortable to take meaningful steps in their tasks with a fresh mind.
“Give the boost your company culture needs.” Start using ProofHub!
Takeaway
While it’s very hard to keep the employees continuously engaged at work, you can choose to have a win-win situation by working on these employee engagement ideas. Try the above ideas and see how well your employees are working together, which will simply be called ‘happiness.’
