Employee engagement defines the level of commitment and dedication that an employee has for their job role and towards the organization. The engagement of your employees also determines employee satisfaction, and both these factors play a pivotal role in making the employees give their best for their company.
A Gallup survey in regard to the performance and engagement of the employees reveals that organizations where employees have higher levels of engagement experience lesser negative outcomes such as employee turnover, employee absenteeism, etc. Along with that, such an organization also experiences positive outcomes in the form of employee loyalty, employee satisfaction, positive employee experience, etc.
The survey in the discussion also reveals that employee engagement leads to 23% more profitability for a company. In addition to this, an increase in customer loyalty by 10% and an increase of 18% in sales can also be expected.
Due to the importance of making and keeping the employees engaged at a workplace, it can be concluded that investing in making the employees more engaged pays off for any business sooner or later.
This article discusses the newer approaches in regard to employee engagement that you can adopt to make your employees more engaged and productive.
How To Keep Your Employee Engagement High?
While making the employee committed is extremely important for an organization, it, nevertheless, is not easily achieved. Research shows that 63.3% of the participating companies said that they find employee retention harder than employee hiring. Since employee retention and engagement are related, we can conclude the same for the latter.
In view of the aforementioned survey, the strategies/ approaches for engagement become necessary. It defines a plan of action for a company to keep the engagement levels of its employees to the maximum.
The engagement policy for making the workers more engaged helps a company establish an approach using which it can make its people engaged. Moreover, it also helps leverage the maximum employee engagement for the benefit of the company.
The policy for your worker’s engagement should ideally have the following blueprint:
a) Measuring the engagement: One of the approaches concerning the engagement of your employees is that it should foremost be measured. For this purpose, metrics such as employee productivity, turnover, absenteeism, etc., can be used. Furthermore, surveys for employee engagement can also be made use of.
b) Improving the measured metrics: After the relevant metrics have been measured, a plan of action should be devised in order to improve them. Essentially, the next step is to have a goal that is based on improving the engagement of the employees and the related factors.
c) allocating a budget: To achieve the goal of improving the engagement would require pertaining actions. To be precise, a company will be required to take steps that will help better employee commitment, which, however, may require a financial expense. Thus, a suitable budget may be required to be allocated.
d) Strategies for employee engagement: The last step takes us to the approaches that this article discusses in detail below, implementing which you’ll be able to keep the engagement of your employees high:
Make your employees’ first day worth remembering
It’s always a good idea to make the first day of your employees memorable. It helps give a better impression of the company, and therefore making your employees’ first day at work a day to remember may help keep their engagement high.
Not necessarily a company needs to be extravagant in its attempt to make the first day of its employees special. A simple onboarding process may also prove to be effective in this regard as it helps an employee to become familiar with the company’s work culture and environment.
Let employees have their say
In the year, one of the ways through which you can keep your employee engagement high is by learning the thoughts and opinions of your employees. These views could be about the matters of the organization that have been developing, has developed, or can be developed.
Not only the organizational affairs but the employees should also be empowered to raise their voices about anything they perceive as necessary. Nevertheless, knowing the perception of your employees is a great way to make them more engaged.
Understanding the importance of learning the employee perception for keeping the employees engaged, Bravo comes with a useful feature of Bravo Voice. It allows a company to understand its employees closely by helping it conduct personalized surveys.
With features such as Bravo Voice, it becomes easier for an organization to collect employee feedback. It also makes it easier to receive the feedback of the employees when required and not on special occasions only.
Work on the employee feedback
As much as it is important to collect your employees’ feedback, it is equally important to work on it. Having your employees respond concerning the organizational issue(s) and not working on it afterward may prove counterproductive. Not only that it results in wasting the time of anyone involved, but it may also give a realization that the company does not take the opinions of its employees as seriously, which is likely to negatively impact their engagement levels.
One of the ways the feedback/ concerns of the employees could be addressed is through direct meetings. It can be extremely helpful to have a healthy discussion with an employee after learning their concern on a specific aspect. Furthermore, it helps establish the employee-employer relationship, which may prove as beneficial concerning employee engagement.
Reward your employees
Rewarding your employees cannot be stressed enough in regard to the engagement levels. It is natural for your employees to stay on the course of action when their efforts and hard work are acknowledged and rewarded. However, if the contributions of employees go unnoticed, it naturally tends to decrease their dedication and engagement.
Rewarding the employees motivates them, which is, of course, a natural phenomenon that relates to every human. Thus, it may not be fair for a company to consider their employees unloyal if they expect their efforts to be credited and rewarded.
A misconception about the employee rewards is that they necessarily have to be monetary, which is, however, not true. A company can leverage all its non-monetary resources to reward its hard-working employees.
Examples of the ways that may not cost a company a monetary expense include, but are not limited to, social media shoutouts, an employee of the month mentions, public appreciation, special parking space for a day, an off day, etc.
The monetary rewards can also prove to be an insignificant expense. And while they are still extra expenses that a company may not like, they, nonetheless, in the long run, may pay off extremely well concerning employee engagement.
Examples of the monetary appreciation that a company may use include company-sponsored lunches, company-sponsored vacays, achievement gifts, tickets to a concert or a game, and similar. However, monetary or non-monetary, both types of rewards can help keep your employee engagement high and are worth giving a shot in 2022.
Reward and recognize the remotely working employees
Remotely working employees are often neglected when it comes to receiving appreciation for their contributions and achievements. A part of such employees is largely the overseas employees who are working for a company from other parts of the globe. Nevertheless, global or not, some companies may not consider it necessary to reward their remotely working employees.
When the employees who do not come to the office for work are ignored with respect to the appreciation of the good work that they do, their engagement level may decrease with time. It is understandable since they equally deserve the due credit for their dedication as their non-remotely working counterparts.
It is one of the biggest blunders to overlook crediting remote employees, and it should be avoided at all costs if a company wants to keep its employee engagement high in 2022. To conclude, it is equally essential to reward and recognize your remote working employees, as much as it is to reward those working from the office.
Observing the engagement of all workers
Sometimes, a company may only monitor the engagement levels of the employees that are working from the office and not of the ones that are working remotely. Similarly, few companies only worry whether their remotely working employees are engaged or not while not equally emphasizing the engagement of their peers who join the office for work.
If a company is only considerate of the dedication of its employees who are working non-remotely, and also vice versa, it is bound to negatively affect the overall employee engagement. Therefore, whether employees are working remotely or not, their engagement should be an equal matter of concern for any organization.
With the employees, regardless of their place of work, being equal with respect to their work engagement, the overall workplace engagement is positively affected. And it is sure to be one of the best techniques to keep your employee engagement high in 2022.
Helping employees to grow
Of course, with your employees getting sufficient opportunities to grow in their respective careers, not only that their engagement may increase, but your employee retention may increase as well.
One of the ways the employees can be helped to grow is by providing them with tasks that match their knowledge, skill, and interest. A company can also provide its employees with the job roles or positions they’re most passionate about. Contrary to this, employees may become exhausted from their work when working in dispassionate roles, let alone grow in their careers.
Employees can also be helped to succeed in their respective careers with means other than assigning them roles of their choice. A company may help its employees learn new skills that may prove beneficial in their profession. Buying them an online course that helps them gain the latest skills is one example in this regard.
Some companies may view helping the employees in their careers as providing them a way to switch loyalties, which is not entirely true. The employees, after learning the sought-after skills, are indeed likely to receive better options. However, helping them acquire skills is more likely to make them stay with the company. Thus, it is not a bad approach at all!
Including women in the workplace
These past few decades have shown how quickly a society can progress with more women involved in its development, and the same goes for the success of an organization.
Today an equal number of women are being college graduates as men, if not being more or less, implying that the literacy rate of women has become higher than ever. Therefore, companies are largely making women a part of their workforce.
In spite of the higher education of today’s women and their competency to take any society and organization forward, they still face several challenges on the professional front. Gender pay parity, sexual harassment, glass ceiling, job insecurity, etc., are some of the constraints faced by working women today.
It is not only the challenges that women have to face when being a part of an organization. In fact, what adds to them is their acceptance in the name of “social norms.” This ultimately not only limits the professional growth and success of working women, but they may also become subject to various mental and personal challenges.
One of the best ways you can adopt to increase employee engagement at your workplace is by empowering women adequately. A company should also make its workforce more diverse in terms of gender. Not only that it will increase the overall engagement, but it will also help establish the brand of the company.
Read: Best Employee Engagement Software To Manage Remote Teams
Giving work autonomy
One of the techniques that a company can implement to make its employees work with more dedication is by giving them enough autonomy in their work.
When the employees are not directed in their work, they may bring better results for their company. On the other hand, if the work of employees is controlled, it may limit their ability to perform better and may also prevent them from reaching their true potential, which may result in their job dissatisfaction and, subsequently, disengagement.
As part of its employee engagement strategy, a company should give employees freedom in their work and should only be concerned with the end results. If experimenting with this brings the desired result, it should continue doing so and can also implement it on all employees.
Making employees the company’s face
Company branding is very much necessary for any business’s success, and employees can help greatly and effectively in this regard. A brand is viewed today through its employees. Therefore, they help make the brand of a company robust.
Besides the role of the employees in presenting a business in a better light to the audience, a company, by making its employees its brand ambassador, helps create a great connection between the employer and the employees.
When the employees become the face of a company, it may make them more involved and concerned regarding its success and failure. As a result, their engagement levels increase.
Introducing peer-to-peer feedback and recognition
Peer-to-peer recognition and feedback are one of the best ways to achieve higher engagement of your employees. Such recognition and feedback involve the exchange of feedback and appreciation of work regardless of their workplace hierarchies.
Most often, organizations do not have such a culture where the higher-ranked employees are accustomed to receiving feedback from their lower-ranked colleagues. Therefore, in such a workplace, the low-ranked employees may feel alienated and equal, which may compromise their engagement.
A company with a culture of peer feedback is likely to have its employees more engaged. It is due to the fact that it makes the employees working at relatively lower hierarchies more belonged. Besides, it helps give a realization that for the company, all its employees are equal regardless of their work hierarchies.
Besides developing a more inclusive workforce, peer feedback is a great way to ensure transparency. Since employees at all positions are provided with feedback in regard to their position and contributions, it leaves little room for others to get away with their incompetency owing to their higher designations.
With all the employees at all positions being evaluated equally and fairly, it tends to increase their engagement and improve their performance as a result. So, with a peer recognition program in place, you can take your employee engagement to new levels.
Peer-to-peer recognition also provides a great deal of help when it comes to elevating the engagement level of employees. When the employees are appreciated for their work irrespective of the organizational hierarchies, it encourages them to keep up their good work. In addition, peer feedback is also advantageous for the employee engagement levels of a company.
Bravo comes with the feature Bravo Peer Feedback which is significant for introducing and incorporating a culture of peer-to-peer feedback and recognition. It helps develop peer (equal) workplace relations, which besides fostering workplace harmony, also provides help in improving the levels of employee commitment and dedication.
Providing employees financial security
Helping employees become financially secure is one of the effective ways to increase the levels of employee engagement. With a company empowering its employees with respect to their finances, not only does their prospect of quitting decrease, but it also helps them become more loyal to their organization.
Not necessarily that in order to support your employees better, a company has to provide them with huge pay raises, but anything that gives them financial security can be helpful. Additionally, paying employees their salary in time is one such relevant example.
Read: How To Boost Employee Engagement During Labor Shortage
Going an extra mile in the employee benefits
In 2022, the best thing to do to increase the engagement of your employees is to provide them with more appealing benefits instead of the standard ones, which means that your employee rewards should not be the typical ones but the ones that are most sought after by the employees.
Some of the non-standard perks and benefits that can help a company in elevating its employee engagement:
- Gym membership fees
- Benefits for commute
- Support for further education
- Work from home allowance
Ensuring a transparent work environment
An organization with a fair work environment, along with a transparent culture, witnesses more engaged employees. On the other hand, the absence of transparency tends to decrease employee engagement. Therefore, any organization with an untransparent culture is likely to experience unengaged employees.
Your employees are likely to work with dedication when they are aware that their workplace is rather fair for all employees. However, where an unfair workplace has the least engaged employees, it weakens the organization in the long run such that its existence becomes endangered.
It is understandable for the employees to become less engaged when their company has little to no transparency to offer. Similarly, it should also be clear why employees may work more dedicatedly in a workplace that is fair and transparent in every aspect.
Every effort that the employees put in for the company counts in a transparent work environment. Furthermore, in such an environment, the credit stealing of someone else’s work is also less likely since the work and amount of hard work of each and every employee is clearly perceived by the company. All these factors add higher engagement to an equal, fair, and transparent workplace.
To help make a company become just in every aspect concerning the employees, Bravo comes with the feature of ‘Bravo Voice.’ As with its name, it empowers the employees of a company to provide their opinions about various workplace matters.
Conclusion
For any organization, employee engagement can play a huge role. This is the reason this article has discussed various strategies to make and keep the employees engaged.
From recognizing and rewarding remote employees and ensuring a transparent work environment to helping the employees grow, a company can adopt any of the mechanisms listed in this article that it considers suitable for its workplace.
The functionalities such as Bravo Voice and Bravo Feedback from Bravo can also come in handy in regard to employee commitment. You can learn more about them by booking a demo.
