Employee engagement strategies are the pathway to a more motivated and productive team. Engaged employees help lower turnover risk, boost morale, and increase productivity and customer satisfaction.
Employee engagement confirms that the workplace is offering more than just a paycheck. Having strategies for building and improving employee relations demonstrates that the company is creating a superior experience for employees. Such employee engagement strategies offer a significant benefit for people, generating higher earning potential for the company.
Workplace engagement can’t be forced. It needs to be deep-rooted and a win-win situation for all. There are many drivers of employee engagement.
Both employers and employees win when commitment, passion, and loyalty towards their work and company coexist. The more engaged the team is, the more work they’ll put forth, which translates to profit. Get this formula right, and you will find your employees going above and beyond. You’ll have basically increased your employee satisfaction.
The challenges and wonders of intrinsic motivation
The best strategies for building and improving employee relations revolve around getting intrinsic motivation right. That means creating an environment where employees have an inner drive to work. Essentially, work becomes fun and passionate rather than just a way to survive. Through intrinsic motivation, not only will your employee opinion surveys go up. Your business will also benefit beyond just profit numbers. You’ll be adding value to the community and the customers you serve.
Intrinsic motivation is different for various people. You can still summarize it as the curiosity to look for challenges while exploring and learning. On the flip side, employees turning up to work only for their paycheck tend to be driven by avoiding conflict and punishment. That doesn’t make anyone go above and beyond.
To create employee engagement strategies around intrinsic motivation, you have to consider how much competence and progress employees feel they’re making in their work. In addition, they have to see meaning in their jobs. They also need to have a sense of choice about how they do their work.
If you think your company needs to improve team engagement, you are not alone. In fact, many companies could be doing a better job with this. Canada Human Resource Center’s semi-annual journal reports that 60% of employees are not engaged, and 15% are actively disengaged at work. Employee disengagement is a major cause of turnover.
Here are six employee engagement ideas that you can start implementing at your workplace right away.
Don’t skip onboarding and training
Employees take pride in what they do. Although, it’s up to the employer to make sure they have a handle on the employee’s role and responsibilities. Workers who are ready to master their workload are eager and engaged with the company.
New hires who experience poorly planned and executed introductory training may jump to premature conclusions that the company is inadequately managed. Worst of all, they’ll assume they don’t matter and their employee satisfaction drops. Conversely, successful onboarding and training programs set the stage for employees to do their job and engage with co-workers effectively. And we all know what it’s like to be a part of a group of engaged employees and to be passionate about the work we do.
SHRM reports that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company if they experience great onboarding. So don’t underestimate the importance of a good onboarding program for team engagement.
Recognize and delegate rewarding assignments
Engaged employees have a sense of reassurance and fellowship with your business. Often it comes from work that is rewarding and attainable. It shows the company acknowledges them and their efforts. Dreary, mindless responsibilities only cause employees to lose interest fast. It has been reported that employees who aren’t recognized are twice as likely to quit. Employees enjoy challenges and recognition because these help show progress and competence.
Don’t forget about employee development
Salary and benefits are not the only reasons job seekers accept a position with your company. Gallup reported that 87% of millennials view career development as essential in their job.
Skill sets can become outdated, and challenges eventually require minimal effort. Employee opinion surveys show that people want to keep learning. So, get your employees engaged by offering generous training and educational incentives. Motivate employees to use their minds and enhance their skills by granting career development opportunities. This further adds to culture and engagement because you’ve tapped into intrinsic motivation. The more you can connect with internal desires, the more likely you’ll have fulfilled and content teams.
Micro-managing destroys employee engagement
As managers, we must remind ourselves that we hire individuals for their skills and expertise. Let them use it. The effects of micromanagement can be horrendous. It can cause a feeling of suffocation in the workplace and ultimately harms employees’ experience, objectives, and performance.
From a manager’s perspective, it is frustrating to stay back and watch when we know how to avoid the pitfalls. While that might seem like a good justification to micro-manage, it doesn’t improve the situation. Actually, in the long run, it only creates more drawbacks. No matter how empathic you think you are as a manager, micromanaging destroys culture and engagement.
Nagging and nitpicking break the trust that exists between employees and managers. Consequences are a loss of motivation or, worse, loss in personnel.
If we are watching over every step of the way, we are taking the freedom away from employees to develop ways to problem solve and accomplish their work. Furthermore, with micromanaging, people stop putting in the effort so you lose out on creativity as well as employee engagement and retention. For better job satisfaction, focus on intrinsic motivation and give your people the space to breathe and make their own mistakes. Leave the process issues to them so you have the time to strategize and build the business.
Coach your managers and leaders
How self-aware are your leaders and do they know what style of management they use? Often, micromanagement behaviors come from fear and anxiety. The need to control is embedded in the fear of failure and insecurity.
On the other hand, a leadership coach can guide leaders to see their micromanagement tendencies. They’ll learn to discover where their insecurities come from and develop skills to overcome them. Moreover, they’ll explore how to support their team’s intrinsic motivation and how to be more empathic to their insecurities. The more human we are, the greater the chance of high employee satisfaction and safe psychological culture.
Share the successes with employees
A big part of running a successful business is allowing employees to understand they’re an important part of the team. Celebrate successes with all employees to keep building employee engagement and retention. By including them, you express your gratitude and recognition that it couldn’t be done without their support. Sharing success bridges the gap between an employer and an employee. They will recognize you as an employer who isn’t just there to benefit themselves, but also their team.
What are your next steps for employee engagement?
There are many areas to consider when trying to improve culture and employee engagement. Of course, when you find great talent, you want to keep the best talent. The above points give you areas to consider to create a happier, more productive workplace filled with engaged employees working for more than just a paycheck.
Coaching with Lingo Live doesn’t just cover training and development. You’re also giving your people the tools and techniques to drive their careers and get to know themselves. They’ll feel more loyal to you while increasing their intrinsic motivation. After all, they’ll be building their internal competence as well as discovering meaning in work and life. There’s no better way to raise employee engagement while getting more loyalty such that they go that extra mile.
