Employee engagement is essential for thriving operations, regardless of your business niche. Did you know that around 47 million Americans have quit their jobs voluntarily in the year 2021? This is a huge number, and the situation is actually alarming. People run businesses, not the other way around. It is crucial for employers to understand what works best for their employees and keep them motivated. One of the best ways to keep employees motivated is by ensuring proper engagement. If you are wondering how to improve employee engagement, you have landed in the right space. In today’s post, we are going to discuss how you can make the change within your workspace.
Effective and Frequent Communication Across Multiple Channels
To build trust amongst employees, it is important to establish frequent yet highly effective communication across different channels. A report by Gallup states that a huge percentage of remote workers struggle to figure out what is expected of them. This indicates a communication lapse that needs to be filled asap. Leaders in your organization must be responsible for regular and proper communication. This is crucial if you want your employees to feel valued, important, and work properly.
When you have a remote/hybrid workforce setting, effective communication is one of the key challenges. You can use multiple channels to communicate verbally, visually, in person, in writing, and more. A few great examples are a 10-minute motivation video to perk up the employees at the start of the week, and a check-up video/audio/conference call with everyone at the end of the week to ensure what was accomplished and what needs to be done. Emails work really well for recurring tasks. When you offer adequate resources for employees, they will feel more trusted, connected, and engage back effectively.
Offer a Combo of Digital and Physical Workspaces
With the modern-day work styles, it is crucial to invest in flexible digital workplace solutions like an intranet, a coworking space, or essentially anything that allows employees to tailor the communication experience in a way that works out for them. Digital workspace solutions for connecting employees and sharing messages are a crucial part of every single organization.
Apart from providing the right tools, offering opportunities to socialize and meet in person further improves communication. It is super important to set time aside to gather every now and then and discuss plans or even collaborate on projects. Human connection is very important for collaborative work environments. Hence, it is crucial to arrange in-person meetings for employees every once in a while, even when you guys work remotely. If you don’t own a physical office, you can always make use of coworking space to arrange for employee meetups.
Pay Attention to Employee Feedback
Effective communication goes both ways. Arrange ways and channels that allow employees to offer feedback openly and confidently and take the desired action. We are not saying to follow the opinion of the employees blindly but listen to their genuine concerns and fix the areas that need improvement. When your employees feel comfortable in sharing their opinion, they feel more confident to share their ideas and opinions that will not only benefit them but also the organization along with improving engagement. You can also go ahead and distribute engagement surveys quarterly or yearly. The survey is used to determine the key points and formulate strategies that work in your best interest. This step alone will set reasonable expectations about the pace of work/progress, incorporate employee feedback, and effectively run the planning cycle. The surveys can be extremely beneficial when your organization is running remotely.
Promote Work-Life Balance
Employees these days are becoming more and more vocal about their need to achieve a better work-life balance. A Joblist survey found that nearly 30 percent of workers sacrifice a part of their salary to achieve a better work-life balance. Parents were willing to get a reduction in salary by 5%, provided that the opportunity offered a better work-life balance. It is important that you encourage flexibility when it comes to work and respect the boundaries of your employees. Make sure that your employees can take the desired time off when needed and avoid setting unrealistic work boundaries.
Invest In Your Employees
Most business owners think that investing in their employees means offering a competitive salary. While it does help, more is needed. Sometimes investing in employees can manifest as hands-on training, continued education, and providing learning opportunities. Recognizing your employees is a super powerful way to make them feel important and valued. You can give them awards at annual dinners, praise them in person, and let them know how important they are to your company.
The ‘work first’ mentality is slowly and steadily fading away, and employees are reconsidering their jobs and whether investing the hours is worth the paycheck. If the management is aligned with both employer and employees’ vision, you can be sure of active engagement which gives your employees every reason to feel motivated and stay.
How to Improve Employee Engagement
Improving employee engagement is not only beneficial for employees but for your business as well. Being able to do that involves the right strategy, planning, and consistency. But if you crack the code, you will surely be glad of the decisions you made. Bonus: Your employees will be super happy to be a part of your organization.
We sincerely hope that you found this article informative and helpful. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or ways in which you engage your employees, we would love to know it all.
