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What is Employee Engagement and Why is it Important?

Employee engagement is a term used in human resources to describe the level at which employees invest their energies (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional) in positive outcomes within their organization. Employee engagement goes beyond employee happiness or satisfaction, also focusing on their motivation levels, emotional commitment, and involvement in their work. Engaged employees are more likely to perform their best at work and contribute to their employer's success.

Engaged Employees Vs. Happy or Satisfied Employees

An employee may be quite happy without putting forth the effort to work hard or be productive. They might find perks like game rooms or time off sufficient reasons to stay in the job, but that doesn't mean they are a real asset to the corporation. Similarly, a satisfied employee will likely show up for their shifts and do exactly what is expected of them without being highly engaged in their work.

What are the characteristics of Engaged Employees ?

Engaged employees showcase the following traits:

1. Enthusiasm about their work and finding meaning in their job duties
2. Use of individual strengths in their job role
3. Seeking out opportunities to learn and grow within the company
4. Willingness to make an extra effort in their performance
5. Responsibility for delivering results and seeking feedback from managers
6. Valuing teamwork and understanding their role in the larger organization

On the other hand, employees who are not engaged often avoid accountability, maintain the status quo, and resist changes in the workplace.

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Importance and Benefits of Employee Engagement

According to a Gallup survey, businesses with more engaged employees enjoy better customer engagement, retention, fewer accidents, and higher productivity. These companies are also an average of 21% more profitable. 

Improving employee engagement leads to several benefits for both organizations and employees, such as:

1. Higher earnings compared to competitors
2. Increased job satisfaction for employees
3. Enhanced customer service ratings, as engaged employees are more likely to go the extra mile for customer satisfaction

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List of Employee Engagement Best Practices

Employee development strategies are part of being a good leader in an organization. To assist you in this important task, here are some tips for developing resources that are crucial to the workforce — human resources — through employee engagement best practices.

1. Encourage Manager Buy-in

Employee engagement must start from the top down within the organization. Leaders need to prioritize engagement or employees will not get on board to support the company’s goals or vision. Effective leadership ensures that the organization's values are upheld, and the success of employee engagement practices is rooted in how leaders interact with their people. Managers are the ones interacting with employees regularly, fostering relationships through active listening and personal interest in employees’ lives. By modeling engagement, they set a standard within their teams which is critical to the success of employee engagement practices across the workforce.

Source: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/285674/improve-employee-engagement-workplace.aspx

2. Communicate with Employees Regularly

One of the best employee engagement strategies is to make employee communication a priority within the organization. Schedule one-on-one meetings with employees to give your people time to develop an individual relationship with their manager. Some people don’t feel comfortable speaking up during group meetings and prefer to voice their opinions during a time with no distractions. During an individual session, the manager asks the employee what they feel is working well and what areas could be improved through employee surveys. The employee feels empowered by these meetings, contributing to their development, and the manager can keep a close eye on employee engagement on a day-to-day basis across the workforce.

3. Provide Plenty of Employee Feedback

One of the most effective leadership best practices that improves employee engagement is to simply ask your people what they think. Employees will provide valuable feedback on the workplace if asked. They are more likely to be honest with leadership if they see management making reasonable changes in the organization based on their comments. Consider these feedback tools, including surveys, for improving employee engagement and fostering the workforce's development and the organization's success:

Performance Management Programs

Managers should be undertaking ongoing performance conversations with their team members and the broader workforce. These include:

• Informal check-ins
• One-one-one meetings
• Performance reviews

These conversations with employees give managers insights into employee progress, goals, and achievements within the organization. Checking in with employees to discuss their performance enables employees to identify the areas where they are already doing well and shows where they can improve in their professional development before a formal performance review. Regular check-ins, using tools like pulse surveys, can also help in maintaining the employee's path to career growth and satisfaction, benefiting both the person and the workforce.

Source: https://benevity.com/resources/best-employee-engagement-strategies

Administer Employee Surveys

An effective engagement strategy is to administer employee surveys several times throughout the year. Employee engagement surveys give staff members the chance to tell organizational leaders what they honestly think since survey questions and answers are kept anonymous. Management can then respond to the workforce’s feedback, aligning with the organization’s values and promoting people development.

4. Make Building an Engagement Strategy a Priority

It’s crucial to make employee engagement a priority for the company and take measures to act on it. Without a clear strategy, employee morale and engagement can diminish, impacting the workforce's success. Workers may not understand what is expected of them. Starting engagement activities from the minute a new employee joins the organization can enhance the onboarding process and set the tone for future engagement, aligning with the company’s values.

Source: https://benevity.com/resources/best-employee-engagement-strategies

No one will take a risk at work to suggest a new idea or try doing anything more than the minimum expected effort within the organization. Employees who try to do more than what is listed in their job description, aligned with the company's values, will likely meet resistance and come under pressure to act like unengaged members of the workforce.

5. Communicate Company and Employee Objectives

Employee engagement must start at the top of the organization. Managers who aren’t engaged can’t expect their employees to be engaged in their work. Without involvement from the top leadership, any employee engagement efforts are unlikely to succeed.

Clearly communicating the company’s goals and expectations to employees is vital. Without clear communication, an employee has little chance of meeting an employer’s expectations, affecting the overall workforce's alignment with organizational success.

When the organization’s goals for each position are made clear, the employee has a goal to strive toward. The employee knows how the organization defines success and what steps are involved in meeting the stated goals.

One way the organizations are communicating company news and objectives is with employee engagement platforms like LumApps. With LumApps, you can create highly segmented lists of employees and send targeted internal campaigns so employees receive the right information at the right time.

For example, you can create a campaign that sends an email to European employees at the start of their day and then sends several hours later to US-based employees so they also receive the information at the start of their day.

Or during benefits renewal, you could send information specific to full-time, salaried employees separately from hourly employees. This ensures effective communication with the workforce in a way that aligns with organizational values and doesn’t make people feel marginalized by seeing information about benefits that are not available to them.

Explain how the employee’s assigned tasks help the organization achieve its main goals. When employees can see how their assignments are contributing to the company’s “big ideas” and aligning with its values, they feel their work has a purpose and makes a meaningful difference. This clarity fosters higher employee engagement levels, contributing to the organization's overall success.

6. Measure Employee Engagement

Measuring employee engagement levels within the organization will help to identify what is working well among the workforce and any areas related to people development that could be improved, enhancing leadership effectiveness.

One strategy for employee engagement measurement is to ask workforce members to complete a survey. The survey questions don’t have any right or wrong answers. They are designed to determine the following:

• Whether employees understand what is expected of them
• Whether the company’s mission communicates the importance of their job
• If the employee receives regular encouragement for development in their role with the company

It’s critical to establish metrics to appropriately gauge current levels of employee engagement within the organization. These metrics will help the company identify its strengths and opportunities for improvement among the workforce. According to employee engagement survey best practices, surveys should be conducted regularly to determine whether the company’s leadership and efforts are improving employee engagement, thereby supporting organizational success.

7. Set up Employee Recognition Programs

Employee milestones, both personal and professional within the organization, deserve to be recognized. For example, you can recognize employees for personal accomplishments or milestones (with the employee’s permission, of course) by letting their fellow workforce members know when they get engaged to be married, welcome a new baby into their family (through birth or adoption), or have lost a family member.

Their co-workers will likely want to share in the employee’s celebrations and offer their sincere condolences on the loss of a loved one. Employees are more than just their job functions; there is an entire work-life balance promoting a supportive organizational culture that employers need to understand.

Employees need to be recognized for their contributions to the organization at work, too. Make sure that when someone goes above and beyond what is expected from them to reach a goal or help a customer, their contribution is acknowledged in front of their peers and upper management, reinforcing organizational values and leadership.

One way you can share accomplishments virtually within the organization is to set up a space for recognitions in your employee experience platforms. You can create an employee recognition program directly in LumApps, where your digital collaboration among the workforce already happens.

Employees can send virtual awards and thank-you’s to their coworkers for a job well done within the organization. The awards will then appear on an individual’s profile in the directory, allowing other employees to see the awards or supervisors to reference them during performance reviews. This is an excellent way employees can be recognized in a remote or hybrid environment, fostering leadership and a cohesive workforce.

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8. Practice On-the-Spot Recognition

When your managers see an employee doing something well, they shouldn’t delay in praising them for a job well done. 

Employers like it when their efforts are acknowledged by managers or executives. If the company has a specific day for acknowledging employees, by all means, add that employee to the list as well. 

Remember that close to half of the modern workforce is made up of millennial employees. People in this age group are used to (and demand) instant gratification. They need to know their efforts have been noticed and appreciated immediately. Management should get in the habit of acknowledging outstanding work immediately.

9. Set Expectations for Employees

It’s impossible for employees to meet their employer’s expectations if the expectations aren’t made clear. Each employee should understand what the employer expects for someone in their role and how to meet them. Workers also need to know how to exceed the expectations for their current role and why their work matters to the company. 

Some executives and managers assume that employees should know exactly what their role is within the company. Unless team members have the expectations explained to them, the employees may not be clear about these matters.

10. Discover What Motivates Employees

An effective way to get a handle on employee satisfaction measurement is to ask employees within the workforce whether they are satisfied at work. The survey could be offered over the company intranet. Many employees would welcome the chance to let their leaders know how well they are doing and how the organization could improve.

Many employees within the organization want to see that there is a clear career path. For this reason, they are interested in continuing education and training programs offered by their employer. Employees want to see that investing in their own development will pay off in qualifying for opportunities at higher levels within the company, enhancing the workforce's capabilities.

Flexible work arrangements also rank high on the list of what motivates employees within the organization. A company culture that is open to hybrid and remote work indicates that the organization values employee empowerment and autonomy, aligning with leadership and workforce development.

11. Have Executives Set the Example

It’s not enough for executives to understand how to succeed in business. They must also know how to set an example for the organization's employees, embodying leadership and the company's values.

Company executives are responsible for training middle managers on how to help their team members who aren’t engaged in their work. The organization can’t have vice presidents who aren’t committed to leadership and guiding managers to help them become engaged. Without this commitment, the organization simply won’t achieve employee engagement success.

12. Conduct “Stay” and “Exit” Interviews

Engaged employees are much less likely to leave the organization. Most companies conduct exit interviews routinely when a workforce member decides to leave. However, it’s just as crucial to conduct stay interviews to retain talent.

A stay interview is similar to an exit interview. The goal is to build employee retention and engagement strategies within the organization before employees start to become dissatisfied with their work and start looking for other opportunities within the workforce.

Employees within the organization start becoming dissatisfied at about the two-year mark. This is the point when they start looking to see “what else is out there.” During a stay interview, ask employees what makes these other opportunities attractive. The employer can attempt to bring those factors into their organization to retain talent and strengthen the workforce.

During stay and exit interviews, ask questions to explore employees’ motives and organizational alignment:

• What things are important to them in a job?
• Why would they stay in a job?
• What makes them decide to leave?
• What made them excited to start a new job?
• What changed over time?

The goal is to determine when the organization’s workforce members’ needs stopped being met so that issues can be addressed and, hopefully, employees will decide not to leave.

13. Offer Assistance When Needed

Everyone can use some help at some point in their life. Part of being an effective manager within the organization is offering assistance to people in their professional or personal lives. Team members should feel confident that they can approach their manager for assistance with workplace or personal issues, since personal problems often spill into the workplace.

Some issues within the organization only require a caring person to listen. For others, the employee may need some guidance from a manager to mitigate them. In either case, the employee should be assured that whatever is disclosed will remain confidential, fostering trust within the workforce.

14. Recognize Employees for their Work Immediately

Everyone loves being recognized for a job well done within the organization. Recognition programs are even better when the workforce gets immediate feedback. When employees have to wait for a particular day when everyone is being recognized for their contributions, it tends to have less impact than on-the-spot recognition, aligning with leadership best practices.

Don’t make employees wait to hear they have handled a project well or stood out when dealing with a difficult customer within the organization. Tell them right away. They will appreciate the immediate recognition, enhancing workforce morale.

15. Change up Your Rewards Options

Don’t give your employees the same rewards and perks all the time within the organization. This is one of the main reasons for the failure of employee engagement programs, affecting the workforce negatively.

Give employees multiple options within the organization. They may wish to have a gift card to a local restaurant or attraction. Some employees may prefer to take an afternoon off instead. Others may want to get access to the corporate privileges that top brands offer on their products, catering to the diverse needs of the workforce.

Change the rewards options depending on the month or season within the organization to keep things interesting for employees. When the workforce knows they can receive something extra, they are more likely to put in more effort, contributing to organizational success.

16. Share your Engagement Efforts on Social Media

When employees within the organization do something praiseworthy, don’t hesitate to give them a shout-out on social media, highlighting leadership's recognition of the workforce's efforts.

Most people in the workforce like to be acknowledged publicly when they do something well within the organization. It gives them a sense of pride in their achievement. When the company acknowledges its employees’ efforts, it communicates to the community that its staff are the best at what they do. Employee recognition is the foundation of employee engagement best practices, reinforcing organizational values and leadership.

Social media is a powerful platform that your organization can use to promote your employees’ achievements. Use it to your advantage by posting positive news about your company whenever possible. The social media posts introduce your employees to a large audience and give the workforce involved a self-esteem boost, enhancing organizational reputation.

17. Invest in Management Training Programs

Managers within the organization are crucial to the employee experience. They can help team members to do their best work, or they can hurt the business. Leaders need much more than technical expertise in a specific area to be successful in guiding the workforce.

Choose managers within the organization carefully based on more than their length of service or their education credentials. Once someone has been chosen for a leadership role, they need specific training and coaching to reflect the company’s culture and organizational values, ensuring alignment with workforce development.

The most effective managers within the organization want team members to be engaged in their work. They pay attention to the employees in their work group to determine whether their people are using their strengths daily and are growing in their position. If not, these employees are the ones most likely to move on to opportunities with other organizations, impacting the workforce.

18. Be Transparent

Many organizations make the mistake of hiding crucial details about what is going on from their employees. Or they try to. It’s almost impossible to keep rumors from starting. Employees end up either getting the wrong idea altogether or developing a picture that is partially true but distorted out of proportion. Neither scenario is something that is going to promote openness, trust, or honesty among the workforce. It will only lead to exactly the opposite.

Of course, organization leaders can’t reveal everything to employees. However, as much as possible, executives and managers should be transparent with the workforce about the company’s financial health, the projects it is taking on, and hopes to land in the future. This is vital information for employees, who may be basing their financial futures on the likelihood that they will remain employed with the organization.

19. Start Practicing Employment Activities from Day One

Your best practices in employee engagement activities should start from the minute a new employee joins the organization. This is one of the critical employee engagement best practices for nurturing the people and leadership within the workforce.

Introducing employee engagement activities during the orientation and onboarding processes gives organizations an advantage. New staff members are introduced to the company’s engagement best practices and organizational values from the start.

New employees within the organization may feel less stress when they join the company. They may also be more motivated to succeed, contributing positively to the workforce.

Onboarding is the perfect opportunity to create an employee journey, which is an automated series of tasks and information within LumApps that an employee needs related to a milestone in their career. Once you outline an onboarding process, you can set it up as an employee journey and then deploy the email series to start automatically - a great way to make sure you don’t forget important information you want to share with the workforce.

20. Focus on Employee Health and Wellness

Healthy employees are a key resource for the organization. Without them, it cannot run efficiently. Many employees feel they should continue to come to work even when they feel sick. This attitude directly impacts productivity and may even make other workforce members ill, contradicting organizational values regarding employee well-being.

Employee health and wellness is one of the major components of an employee engagement program within the organization. Many employees are susceptible to diseases due to a sedentary lifestyle if they sit at a desk at work, impacting the workforce's overall health.

A good health and wellness program within the organization can raise awareness of the health hazards of sitting all day. It also benefits workers and employers in these ways:

• It encourages employees to adopt a healthy lifestyle
• It gives workers suggestions for changing their current work habits
• Employers get the benefit of lower rates of absenteeism 
• A health and wellness program is a good strategy for increasing employee engagement 

21. Strive for a Healthy Work Environment

All the available employee engagement best practices can be put in place, but this effort won’t succeed if the organizational workplace isn’t a healthy environment. Establish policies that bullying and harassment of employees, vendors, suppliers, customers, or anyone else interacting with the company will not be tolerated, aligning with organizational values and protecting the workforce.

Employees within the organization may need assistance with how to express themselves when they are frustrated. It can be difficult to stay focused on an issue without assigning blame. Even worse, the conversation may devolve into attacking the other person’s work ethic or other personal characteristics, undermining leadership and organizational values.

Make communication training available to everyone in the organization. This communication strategy ensures that everyone in the company understands how to interact with each other clearly and positively, fostering a cohesive and engaged workforce.

22. Encourage Employees to Collaborate

Encouraging collaboration within the organization is an excellent strategy for improving employee engagement. Consider these ways to put it into practice:

Cross-functional Collaboration

Look for opportunities within the organization where employees from different teams or departments can work together on tasks or projects. This policy will help to bring down silos and increase the sense of teamwork within the workforce.

Collaboration Tools

Use project management software, online collaboration spaces, virtual meeting platforms, and the company intranet to foster collaboration and share ideas easily throughout the organization.

Team-building Opportunities

Organize team-building activities within the organization. Schedule outings that encourage workforce members to get to know each other and work together in a relaxed setting, enhancing collaboration and engagement.

Encourage Open Communication

Encourage employees within the organization to share their ideas and provide feedback to each other. Create a workplace culture where people feel safe to speak up and share their perspectives during team meetings, video calls, group chats, etc., supported by leadership.

23. Make Employee Engagement Part of Company Culture

The best HR practices for employee engagement form part of ongoing policies that are ingrained into the company culture. These practices add up to a lot more than holding a meeting once a year or sending out a survey every quarter to ask employees how they feel about their work. (These two strategies are a very good start, by the way.), reinforcing organizational leadership and workforce engagement.

If the organization’s culture doesn’t value honest, open, and constant communication that keeps the workforce engaged, then it needs to shift in that direction. The company can establish a communication strategy built around employee engagement.

24. Remember that One Size Doesn’t Fit All

When planning your employee engagement strategy, don’t implement one policy expecting that it will work for everyone. The best HR practices for employee engagement reflect the needs of the organization’s workforce. Since every organization’s makeup is different, it makes sense that employee engagement strategies must be individualized based on the number of employees, the work environment, leadership styles, etc.

25. Hire New Employees with Care

When making hiring decisions, keep in mind that the new employee must have the right qualifications and be the right person for the organization. A candidate can learn some skills they don’t have on their resume, but they can’t necessarily learn how to be a good fit for the company’s culture and workforce.

It may be a better idea to choose a candidate who has a great attitude and is willing to learn over the person who has more experience and several awards but who is more rigid in their thinking, ensuring a better fit with the organization’s values and workforce.

26. Support Employees in Career Advancement

The days when someone would spend their entire career with the same organization are finished. Employees will eventually move on to new opportunities. They need to know that their current employer supports them in their career ambitions, whether it means they end up leaving the organization or staying on, retaining valuable people within the workforce.

To keep high-performing workers in the organization, hire from within the organization whenever possible. Provide current employees with training and development, so they can keep their skills current and learn new ones. Make business communication tools a priority to assist employees in performing their job duties, aligning with leadership and organizational values to support the workforce.

27. Add Some Fun to the Workplace

The workplace doesn’t have to be completely serious all the time to keep the workforce productive. To keep employees engaged, find ways to maintain interest by making the workforce’s jobs fun, especially if the work itself is repetitive or mundane in nature. The work still has to get done, but employees can enjoy themselves by answering a fun trivia quiz on their break, entering draws for prizes, etc.

28. Identify and Support Star Employees

It’s crucial to look for employees within the organization who are performing above and beyond what is expected of them. These are “star” employees and they stand out from the rest of the workforce. Their contributions can make a major difference to the company culture and exemplify leadership and organizational values.

Once these outstanding performers are identified within the organization, make a point of rewarding them for their performance. Promote them to higher-level positions, recognizing their leadership potential. Highlight them on the company intranet as examples of what other employees can aspire to with hard work, dedication, and training, inspiring the workforce.

29. Invest in Modern Technology

Employees within the organization can’t be expected to stay engaged in their work and give their best effort if they are working with old, outdated technology.  An employer can create a forward-thinking work culture by investing in modern software and equipment so that employees have all the tools they need to do their work efficiently. The workforce will find their work runs more smoothly if they are not spending extra time looking for files or dealing with outdated versions of software, enhancing organizational productivity and leadership.

One technology that organizations are investing in is a modern intranet or employee experience platform, like LumApps. This modern technology allows for two-way communication so you can send important company announcements to employees, and employees can comment back on the announcements and interact with each other.

When shopping for an employee engagement tool, make sure that it comes with an employee intranet mobile app so the workforce can connect with each other and receive important information no matter where they work or what device they are using, supporting leadership and organizational communication.

30. Keep Practicing Engagement Processes

With time and practice, engagement processes can become a key part of the company culture. If an organization feels that employee engagement is something it needs to work on, then its leadership and employees need to be persistent in their efforts to engage the workforce.

As team members invest in engagement strategies, overall engagement within the organization increases and continues to grow steadily over time. Remember, engagement can’t be forced. It’s crucial to be patient with the process. The employee experience  doesn’t change overnight. Workers are initially cautious that the changes leadership is introducing won’t be permanent. Management must continue to keep demonstrating the principles of being open and honest, adhering to organizational values. Eventually, the workforce will respond positively.

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