Most managers have witnessed an employee or a team member leave the company to work for the competitor at least once in their careers. Which might make them wonder: what does a competitor have that they as a company don’t?
What encourages Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement at your workplace is highly encouraged and influenced by employee recognition. Not only this, but how you recognize the employees also plays a large role in making employees engaged.
Acknowledging your employees for the efforts they have been putting in and the results they have been producing urges the employees to become and stay engaged. Thus, to conclude, employee resignation and the subsequent rewards encourage employee engagement.
What are the 3 C’s of employee engagement?
The following factors largely determine the employee engagement of employees:
Career: The development of an employee’s career by promoting them, providing them with challenging tasks, delegating authority, etc.
Competence: How employees are made to grow professionally by learning different skills.
Care: Prioritizing an employee’s mental health, encouraging work-life balance, etc.
Read: 5 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Employees Engagement
Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Employees Engagement
Here are our top 8 things your competitors can teach you about employee engagement:
1. Money is not everything
Often managers think that the only reason their employees would leave the company is because they were offered a higher salary by the competitor. However, this is not always the case. Other factors, such as job satisfaction and appreciation tend to have a stronger impact.
2. Job satisfaction
This brings us to the next point: job satisfaction! If you are seeing a big employee turnover, then consider the fact that maybe your employees feel dissatisfied with their jobs. The reasons for this dissatisfaction could be very different based on the individual. Therefore, invest the time needed to better understand your employees’ needs and expectations.
3. Low employee engagement
Low employee engagement often goes hand in hand with low job satisfaction. A study conducted in 2017 by Gallup found out that only 4 out of 10 employees believe they have the opportunity to do their best at work. What this means is that there is often a misalignment between the job requirements and the employee’s skills. This will lead to lower employee engagement as your staff might feel like they can’t contribute to the development of the company.
4. Open communication and feedback
In order to better understand what makes your employees tick, you need to have open communication with them. Ask them for feedback and implement the changes they are suggesting. You will be surprised how cooperative your employees will be if you work together with them to improve their job satisfaction and employee engagement.
5. Working culture
Working culture is another thing which your competitor might have perfected, while you are still struggling with it. In fact, the culture at your company might be the thing that makes an employee stay or leave! Your staff’s engagement will be the highest when they feel like their values align with the company’s values.
6. Bad management
Did you know that 44% of employees have left a job because of their boss (BambooHR, 2018)? The reasons behind this can be many: from a manager taking credit for their employee’s work to lack of trust between a boss and employees. In fact, poor management techniques can lead to extremely low employee engagement.
7. Employee training
Employee training could be another big factor why employees decide to leave you. If you don’t offer them any training then you indicate that you do not care about the development of their skills. More trainings lead to employees learning new skills and increasing their productivity.
8. Employee reward system
Finally, you can learn a lot about employee engagement from your competitor by investigating what employee rewards system they use. If you are not using one yet, consider a reward system based on customer feedback. This is a great way to increase employee engagement by showing them how their work impacts directly the final customer.
Conclusion
In conclusion, employee engagement is a tricky subject and inevitably you will have employees who will want to switch to your competitor. However, by focusing on the 8 points we outlined above, you can improve your employee retention, engagement and productivity!
