Best 15 Employee engagement strategies
Employees that are more engaged with their place of work are happier, more productive and stay loyal. Creating a work environment that excites staff members means using the right employee engagement strategies. To help you build a strong team, we’ve put together 15 of the best employee engagement strategies.
Why is Employee Engagement More Important Than Ever?
Building a successful business means acquiring hardworking, reliable and skilled employees. However, attracting talented, dedicated employees and ensuring that they stay within the company isn’t easy. Employees want to work for companies that truly value them, offer flexible working arrangements, have strong values and a clear mission.
Many people are aware of why employee engagement is so important but it isn’t an easy concept to pin down. Basically, employee engagement is about how emotionally attached a person is to the company they work for. If an employee is happy at work, feels fulfilled in their role, and is excited about their job, then they most likely have good levels of engagement.
An employee that is truly connected to their company will be more productive, more passionate and more motivated. Employee engagement increases staff satisfaction levels, reduces turnover, decreases absenteeism, drives innovation and helps to boost the bottom line. [JR1]
A poll by Gallup showed that employee engagement is rapidly declining.1 If you’re not on top of your employee engagement levels, you could see productivity drops and start to lose your best talent to competitors.
Luckily, there are many ways companies can raise engagement. Digital tools are highly effective at accurately measuring employee engagement. They can be used to improve communication, gather feedback, and track satisfaction levels. The LumApps platform is a great example of an app that enhances the employee experience and helps to encourage engagement.
Discover how to build a better team with our 15 top strategies for improving employee engagement.
Employee Engagement
Time to start or overhaul an engagement strategy? Capitalize on Employee Engagement Opportunities.
1. Create a Strong Company Culture
Employees find it hard to make a connection with a company that doesn’t have a strong identity. Building a company culture will not only give your enterprise a strong and clear sense of mission and purpose but it will also help to foster loyalty. Creating a strong company culture is a win-win situation for everybody. Implementing a company culture requires taking up a set of strategies aimed at helping employees at all levels feel more connected to each other and the company.
Example
Company culture is based on shared ideals, goals, attitudes, and values. Identify the ways in which your company wants to set itself apart, how it wants to project itself and what the overall mission is. Everything from dress code to the office layout to the perks offered by the company contributes to its culture. By having a clear idea of what your company stands for and how it wants to operate, you will find yourself well on the way to creating a strong culture.
Top Tip
Encouraging employees to participate in events, team-building activities, and even charitable activities can be a great way to foster company culture. For remote or dispersed teams, an employee engagement platform is particularly useful because it creates a virtual space where employees can connect and share information, no matter where they work.
2. Be Aware of Employee Engagement Levels
Are your employees really engaged with their work and excited to be a part of the company? Do they go over and above what is expected of them? Or are they just marking time at work and doing the bare minimum until they can clock off? To make sure your company is getting the most out of its talent pool, you need to know exactly how engaged your employees really are. Your company should develop an effective employee engagement communication strategy and regularly monitor employee engagement levels.
Example
Surveys are a great way to measure just how engaged your employees are. You can survey your teams annually, quarterly, or even every week. Make sure the surveys can be anonymous, this way you’ll get honest answers. Include questions on how rewarding or challenging your employees find their roles and how satisfied they are within the company. The data collected from your surveys can help to measure employee engagement by tracking employee engagement KPIs like internal promotion rates, turnover and satisfaction levels. Regular one-on-one meetings are also ideal ways to gather insight into how employees feel about their work and how engaged they are with the company.
Top Tip
You can send out an employee engagement survey via your intranet. Set the questions with a rating scale so they can fill out the survey quickly. It’s a good idea to also include space for any feedback.
3. Open Clear Lines of Communication
Many promising projects fail because teams are not communicating effectively. It’s crucial for upper management to create clear lines of communication between business leaders and front-line staff and between team members. Clear communication lines will help to foster team spirit among your employees and ensure that everyone knows what is expected of them.
Example
Encourage your teams to hold weekly meetings where team members can share their thoughts and supervisors can deliver information. Consider banning the use of mobile phones during meetings to ensure people aren’t distracted. It’s also a good idea to send out a weekly or even a daily bulletin via your intranet to keep everyone updated on what is going on in the company.
Top Tip
If a team can’t be in the same physical space, they can use digital conferencing and video tools to hold their meetings. If you have an intranet like LumApps, employees can create their own posts and other employees can comment on the posts, facilitating asynchronous communication. LumApps also has features that help send top-down communication to employees via campaigns to increase visibility on important messages or journeys (these are particularly helpful for recurring processes like onboarding or preparing for leave).
4. Encourage Employee Feedback
Encourage staff to share their thoughts on how the company operates and what can be improved. Your employees are going to feel more engaged and connected to the business if they are sure that their opinions and ideas can be heard. Knowing that their ideas on company policies and procedures matter will make your employees feel valued. Collecting feedback is a great way to measure employee engagement. As an added plus, you may even come up with innovative ways to improve operations!
Example
Management and supervisors should have an open-door policy where team members can approach them at any time to raise issues or share ideas. A great example of this is the Lean management system developed by Toyota, where employees at every level of the business are consulted on how they think the company can be improved.
Top Tip
Implement Lean management techniques, such as the Gemba walk. This technique involves upper management regularly walking through the company to observe how employees do their jobs and get feedback from workers on the front lines.
5. Prioritize Work-Life Balance
Any employer offering their employees a good work-life balance will create more engagement. Being open to employee requests for time off and allowing employees flex-time to take care of their personal responsibilities will make them feel more valued. When creating schedules or assigning workloads, employees’ individual needs should be considered. Does one person have a sick relative or a small child? Find out and act to incorporate employees’ personal life plans into their work schedules.
Example
The rise of remote working has meant that employees are now much more predisposed to choosing an employer that is flexible about where and even how the work gets done. Try offering employees the choice of remote working or implementing a hybrid model where there are days in and out of the office.
Top Tip
Offering hybrid or remote working models is a great way to attract top talent to your company and steer them away from competitors.
6. Focus on Rewarding Your Employees
Everyone likes to be rewarded for a job well done. Be sure that you acknowledge and reward your employees who perform well. By acknowledging the efforts your people are making, you will foster better morale, encourage your employees to be more motivated, and increase their feelings of being valued.
Example
Organize a monthly or weekly company meeting to publicly acknowledge and reward employees who are performing at their best. It’s important to congratulate, encourage and reward not only those employees that are performing at an above-average level but also those who consistently perform well.
Top Tip
Don’t just focus on formal recognition and award ceremonies. Encourage your managers to build praise and recognition strategies into every informal meeting. You can even create an employee recognition program within your intranet where you can send virtual awards and share successes across the company.
7. Organize Team-Building Activities
The working environment doesn’t always have to be a serious place. Team-building activities can add a sense of fun and playfulness to your office and help to improve employee engagement. Team building activities are one of the most successful employee engagement strategies as they help to strengthen your overall company culture.
Example
Hold a monthly or quarterly company-wide event with activities where employees can get to know each other better. Host weekly catchups at a department or team level so team members can socialize and build relationships. Remember that not everyone has an extrovert personality. Try and include some team-building activities where more introverted employees will feel comfortable participating.
Top Tip
Team-building activities don’t have to take place in person. You can organize a wide range of great activities via video conferencing or even chat groups.
8. Develop a Strong Onboarding Process
A welcoming and informative onboarding process is critical for developing employee engagement. Starting a new job is always a difficult and anxiety-inducing process. Implementing a strong onboarding process will make new staff feel at home and supported right from the start. When done right, onboarding is one of the most effective strategies for improving employee engagement.
Example
Clear communication and access to information are crucial to a good onboarding process. Give your new hires detailed information on their roles, explain the company culture, and make sure they know who their team members and superiors are. Give your new employees a tour of the workplace, have a superior or a more experienced colleague explain work processes, and hold a team meeting to break the ice.
Top Tip
Onboarding isn’t just a short-term process. It can take months for a new employee to feel completely comfortable in their new role. Make sure you give your new hires enough time and support for them to settle in properly. The employee journeys feature within LumApps helps streamline onboarding. For example, you can create a custom onboarding process that sends automation emails and prompts to guide employees through onboarding. Not only does this help employees feel connected as soon as they begin work, but it helps reduce the manual load on your HR team or managers who might accidentally forget an important step.
9. Ensure There is Transparency at the Top
Business leaders must make sure that their employees are kept informed of changes in the company and are aware of any new developments. Information on key decisions should be made available to employees so they can feel involved in the direction the company is heading. Employees that feel as though they aren’t being informed of what is happening at the top wind up feeling disenfranchised and lose trust and confidence in upper management.
Example
If your company is about to have a major change, such as an acquisition or a merger, be sure to inform your employees as to why the change is taking place. Explain the benefits of the change and the reasoning behind it. Keep your employees up to date on how well the company is performing as a whole and how well teams and departments are performing.
Top Tip
Your company intranet is a great way to disseminate information about company changes and promote transparency.
10. Educate Business Leaders
Too often the people at the top of the corporate ladder are too removed from their employees. Educating the people at the top is one of the best practices to improve employee engagement. Business leaders need to be informed about the roles of their employees and why each employee plays a crucial part in the business. Educate your upper management to be more sensitive to employee needs and stress the importance of keeping employees engaged with the company. If your employees know that management teams are aware of the struggles they face, they will feel more valued.
Example
Write handbooks for your managers and top-level executives and run training sessions that allow them to learn about the challenges that employees face. Share survey results so that upper management can get a clear picture of employee engagement levels.
Top Tip
Have an employee speak at an upper-level meeting to show that management teams are interested in how employees perform their work.
11. Be Consistent in Your Approach
While surprises can be fun if it’s your birthday, they’re often not welcomed at work. Your employees need to know exactly what they can expect from you and that they can rely on management to be consistent in their approach. Consistency builds trust and creates a sense of predictability. By being more consistent, you will increase productivity levels and give your employees a sense that the company is well organized.
Example
Consistency creates predictability, which improves productivity and builds engagement. Try to choose a management style and stick with it. Don’t implement major changes without informing your employees first. Make sure that management and employees are both held accountable for their accomplishments and their failures in the same manner. Consistency relies on repetition. Management must make sure that their words and their actions always reflect the same core values.
Top Tip
Focus on creating routines that your employees can rely on. Schedule meetings and events at the same time regularly.
12. Provide Clear Growth Paths
No one wants to be stuck running in circles when it comes to their career. Your employees need to feel that there are opportunities for them to advance in the company and that they won’t just be kept in the same role. Provide your employees with a clear path that they can follow for career development, and you’ll see your employee engagement levels rise. Knowing that they can grow in the company will motivate employees to be more productive and loyal.
Example
Invest in employee development initiatives. Provide your employees with training so they can build their skills and climb the company ladder. Offer training days with senior management or colleagues in more advanced positions. Encourage managers and supervisors to get to know their teams well so that they can identify who might be suitable for advancement.
Top Tip
Offer your employees skill-building courses run by third parties. Consider allowing employees to trade vacation time for training courses paid for by the company.
13. Build a Culture of Diversity at Work
Every employee is a unique individual with their own personality and background. Your employees may come from a range of cultures and countries. Everyone should be made to feel welcomed and accepted at work. If your employees feel like they are accepted and respected for who they are it will greatly enhance their feelings of engagement with the company.
Example
It’s not always easy to create a sense of unity among people with diverse backgrounds, but with some effort, it can be achieved. Create a diversity and inclusion survey to gauge levels of diversity in the workplace. Take note of your employees’ feedback and hold follow-up meetings if need be. Be aware of any cultural differences that may pose problems when putting teams together. Hold diversity training sessions to educate staff members on how to be more accepting of each other.
Top Tip
Create a workplace that acknowledges and recognizes diversity. Some groups may benefit from support programs while others may require additional facilities, for example, wheelchair ramps or prayer rooms.
14. Encourage Mental Health Awareness
Many workplaces offer their staff physical health programs but taking steps to encourage good mental health is also important. Employees can often feel overstressed, anxious and depressed at work. Encouraging an open and accepting environment where people can discuss mental health issues will help employees to feel as though they are understood and cared for. Being more aware of mental health issues will reduce rates of employee burnout, decrease absenteeism and build employee engagement.
Example
Creating more mental health awareness in the workplace involves taking steps to remove the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Encourage employees to discuss their levels of stress with their supervisors. Try and allocate work so that employees are not constantly faced with tight deadlines and more work than they can handle. Consider appointing a mental health officer who can advise employees on how to find help if they need it.
Top Tip
Offer training sessions that educate employees on how they can reduce their stress levels. Classes on meditation and breathing techniques, yoga, and Tai Chi can be very useful in lowering stress.
15. Give People a Sense of Purpose
Your employees are not automatons or robots. They need to feel as though their work has a sense of purpose. Create a strong vision for your company and make sure that all your employees are aware of it. Management should regularly provide people with praise and feedback and remind them that they are aware of the importance of their work. A sense of purpose will help to bolster the company culture, create a sense of belonging and greatly improve employee engagement.
Example
Every employee of the company should be made to feel that their work matters. From the cleaners that come in at 4am, to the customer service staff or to top-level executives, everyone needs to understand that their work is valued. A sense of purpose can be achieved by explaining the value of various employee roles during monthly or weekly meetings. Have guest speakers explain what they do and how it impacts the company. Arrange for employees to spend time with different departments to learn how everyone’s work contributes to the success of the company.
Top Tip
Demonstrate that providing employees with a sense of purpose is a clear company core value by keeping them informed of the progress of the enterprise.
More Engaged Employees Are Better Employees
Focusing on creating a strong employee engagement action plan is the key to attracting high-quality people and making sure they stay loyal to your company. Increasing levels of employee engagement will ensure that your employees stay motivated and excited about their roles. Engaged employees have higher levels of productivity and lower rates of absenteeism.
Employee Engagement
Time to start or overhaul an engagement strategy? Capitalize on Employee Engagement Opportunities.
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