Employee engagement is widely desired and rarely achieved. Engaged employees come to work ready to do a great job and have a passion for their work. They feel connected with their co-workers, management, customers, and the company’s goals and vision. Most employees are simply not engaged; they come into work to spend the time necessary and the effort required to get paid. Bottom line, disengaged employees undermine the efforts of the entire team. Solving the problem immediately and handling the situation the right way are two key components to building employee engagement.
Investigate
Without an investigation, it’s challenging to understand the engagement of your employees and it’s even harder to improve it. Employee surveys can be successful in gathering information but they must be done right. Some things to consider:
- Surveys must be consistent. It’s not just a one time questionnaire that no one looks at again. Ask different employee engagement questions on a 6-month or annual basis. This way the team will know that you care if, or if they are not, engaged.
- The power is in the questions. Ask open ended questions. For example: Would you refer someone to work here? Do you feel valued? Do you think you will grow to your full capacity here? Are your career goals being met? Is leadership transparent?
- Anonymous surveys often offer more honest feedback. When surveys are not anonymous the full story may not come to light. People are rarely willing to criticize coworkers and managers when their names are public. If names are required or included, protect them. Retaliation is common, and you may never know about it but the employee will.
- When employees completes a survey, they expect action. It is important that the process is transparent with lots of updates and information. It will feel like over the top communicating but it will not feel that way to your team. Employees can become quickly disillusioned if they feel they have provided feedback and actionable information and they never hear anything about it again.
Act Locally and Strategically
Change can happen from many directions in the workplace but it must be supported and nurtured from the top. If leadership doesn’t seem to care, it will never improve. Leadership should consistently be focused on strengthening engagement. It must be woven into management and company-wide goals and communications. If employees don’t feel empowered to improve their environment and working conditions, they will not be engaged. Managers must be supportive, share the information they’ve received, and work with the employees to find, develop, and implement solutions.
Hire the Right Managers
Managers are critical to employee and team engagement and if the wrong person is in a leadership position the team will never be engaged. Employees are responsible for the company’s success, after all an employee will make hundreds of decisions on the company’s behalf every day, therefore, managers need to care about their employees’ engagement, happiness, and empowerment. Managers need to lead. Great managers are uncommon, and terrible managers are everywhere. Spending your time building a great management team will significantly improve your odds of having an engaged, productive workforce.
Support the Managers
All too often, leadership will spend the time and effort in building that great management team and then expect the managers to operate on their own. By giving the managers the tools they need to focus on open conversations and taking an active role in improving employee engagement the team will improve in the form of commitment and loyalty. Additionally, creating clear team engagement goals, holding managers accountable, and tracking progress is critical.
Make Engagement a Part of Daily Life
Engagement is an element of an organizations culture, therefore, it must consistently be part of the employees’ daily experience. By being clear on the company’s vision, building achievable and understandable goals for the entire team, reinforcing these goals and ideas in daily conversations, weekly meetings, and 1-on-1 meetings engagement is being supported at all levels.
If you would like to learn more about how to make your team the most committed, resourceful and profitable aspect of your business schedule a time to chat about our Team Engagement Process.