Employee engagement is not just another buzzword. In fact, many employers confuse engagement with job satisfaction and happiness. But the reality is that engaged employees are emotionally invested in their roles and commit their talent, time and energy to the success of the business. If you want to increase engagement, you need to understand what engagement is and, more importantly, what drives it. In this guide, we will share our top tips for driving employee engagement.
What is Employee Engagement Such a Hot Topic?
A number of years ago, you may not have heard of the term ‘employee engagement’. Today, it is a popular metric that is used to measure the level of enthusiasm and commitment employees have towards their jobs. After all, employee engagement is linked to productivity and company culture. If employees are disengaged, this will negatively impact your company’s success.
Research shows that 9 in 10 UK employees are disengaged from their jobs. What’s more, this is well below the European average of 14%. So, it is no surprise that more and more businesses are concerned about how enthused their employees are and the potential impact this will have on their productivity and profitability.
If employees are only doing the bare minimum and do not take pride in their work, innovation and customer satisfaction will also suffer. Not to mention, disengaged employees usually have one foot out of the door and are more likely to quit. This means businesses will be spending more money on attracting, hiring and training new talent. To learn more about why engagement is so important, read our article on the benefits of employee engagement.
What are Drivers Exactly?
In a nutshell, engagement drivers are items or survey questions that impact engagement the most. These are the items that companies can take action on and can cover a range of topics, such as:
Trust in management and leadership
Manager effectiveness
Individual needs
Feeling valued
Communication
For example, your employee engagement survey may ask employees to rate how valued they feel by their manager or whether their manager is a good listener. Based on the outcomes of the survey, you can take steps to increase recognition and improve communication to drive higher engagement.
Effective Drivers of Employee Engagement
0f course, all drivers will impact engagement levels to some degree. But the secret to success is identifying and acting on the drivers that your employees really care about. Here are the drivers that every business should focus on.
Personal Development
If you want your employees to be emotionally invested in the success of your company, you need to show them that you are also invested in their personal success. Drivers for measuring personal development, include:
I have opportunities to grow and progress in this company
My role allows me to make the most of my strengths
My role is interesting and challenging
My role aligns with my career aspirations
The company makes investments so that I can be more successful
Future Outlook
In a perfect world, every employee would be enthusiastic about their jobs and invested in the success of their company. However, many employees cannot wait to leave their jobs. If your employees have a negative view of the company’s future, this can have a significant impact on engagement. Key drivers include sentiments, such as:
I understand how I fit into the company’s future plans
I am confident that the business will be successful in the future
I trust managers to lead us in the right direction
Feeling Valued
When it comes down to it, employees are a business’s most valuable resource. But many employees do not feel valued by business leaders. The following drivers can indicate how valued employees feel:
I believe that my opinions count at work
I will be recognised for my contributions to the company’s success
I believe that senior leaders see people as their most valuable asset
How to Increase Employee Engagement
Once you have established what drives employee engagement in your organisation, the next step is to identify the areas where your business falls short and act on them. Here are some tips to increase employee engagement.
1. Share Your Company Vision and Goals
To build trust, it is important to keep your employees in the loop and be transparent about your vision and goals. If employees understand the reason behind decisions and have an opportunity to have their say, this will help to increase engagement.
2. Provide Regular Updates
Business leaders need to do more than just share company and team goals. They also need to track progress and provide employees with updates. That way, they can share in your success.
3. Make Sure Employees Understand How They Fit In
Whether you are looking to expand to a new location, release a new product or service, or simply grow your team, it is important that employees understand how they fit into the bigger picture. So, it makes sense to use one-on-one meetings to talk about how their role may evolve and what their position will look like in the future.
4. Collect Feedback
There is no better way to boost engagement than by establishing a feedback culture. By conducting regular employee well-being surveys, you can collect valuable data about how your employees feel and show them that you care about them as individuals.
Managers play an important role in encouraging employees to speak up and implement changes. That is why you need to make sure that your top-level employees have the skills to measure employee engagement and implement engagement strategies.
In some cases, your senior employees are not always the right people to drive change, especially when it comes to mental health. We found that 39% of employees do not feel comfortable talking to someone who is superior to them about their mental health. That is why it makes sense to have well-being champions that people feel comfortable talking to.
5. Praise and Reward Employees
When it comes down to it, employees want to get a stamp of approval for their managers and be recognised for their hard work. It is a good idea to implement a reward system so that employees receive the praise they deserve.
6. Provide Employees With More Autonomy
Let’s face it, no one wants to be micromanaged at work. To show your team that you trust and believe in them, provide them with more responsibility and supervise them less. You may also want to consider allowing your employees to schedule their own tasks and activities.
7. Set Aside a Training Budget
To help your employees build industry knowledge, you should set aside a budget for training courses, workshops, webinars and books. Equally, it makes sense to provide internal training and mentoring opportunities for your employees, such as tailored initiatives or company-wide programmes.
8. Promote Your Top Employees
Your best employees should have opportunities to move up the ladder. If there are no opportunities to promote your top performers, find other challenging tasks and projects to help them grow within their current roles.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
Even if you do not intend to, you may take actions that cause employees to disengage. Here are the common mistakes that can lower engagement levels.
1. Hiring The Wrong Candidates
Driving employee engagement starts with hiring the right people. If candidates are not enthusiastic or have no intention of progressing within the company, they will not be engaged in their work. To determine whether candidates are the right fit, ask the following interview questions:
What part of this role excites you the most?
How do you stay up to date with the industry and continue your education?
2. Fostering a Competitive Culture
Sure, a little competition can be healthy. Though you run the risk of creating a toxic work environment if employees are constantly compared to their coworkers. Not to mention, pitting coworkers against each other reduces trust and collaboration. Instead, it is wise to drive engagement by simply acknowledging the accomplishments of individuals.
3. Rejecting Suggestions
It is important to try and take new ideas on board and really hear your employees out. If they are making reasonable suggestions, you should do your best to implement them. If it is not possible, simply explain why and thank them for sharing their ideas.
4. Micromanaging
Naturally, business leaders want to monitor employees and make sure they are working hard. However, ruling with an iron fist can lower engagement levels. That is why you should allow employees to do their jobs without hanging over them and provide them with some flexibility.
Key Takeaway
Job hopping is more common than ever before. If employees are disengaged, they are more likely to jump ship to another company. Therefore, businesses need to invest in strategies to boost engagement. Plus, this will create a domino effect and lead to increased productivity and innovation, lower employee turnover and more revenue.
Remember that reengaging employees does not just happen overnight and your business needs to make a conscious effort to implement effective changes.
Let Us Help You Retain Your Top Talent
Our specialist engagement consultants excel at driving employee engagement. If you want to get your employees excited about their jobs, we can help with that. Get in touch with our HR experts today.
