For a business, it is very important that its employees are engaged and invested in making the business a success. It is not only important in getting everyday tasks done, but also helps the business or organization achieve its goals.
A higher employee engagement rate leads to better performance, also a lower employee engagement rate can lead to worse performance. So, for the HR department, it is very important to create strategies that will help in increasing employee engagement.
The purpose of these strategies is to give something to employees that they admire about the business, or the company they work for and give their job some meaning, and a sense of purpose.
Here is a list of the ten most effective employee engagement strategies that have been tested and implemented successfully in many world-renowned organizations.
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1. Build Trust
If you want better engagement from your employees, you will have to make your employees trust you. It is one of the most important factors. If employees do not trust the business or team, they won’t perform as they should. It is in human nature to seek trust and to be valued. So, by building trust, you can achieve better employee engagement. The trust of your employees will clear any doubts about the leadership and the business and your employees would feel more valued. That is when they become more engaged in the day-to-day work and they also become more invested in the company’s overall business goal.
2. Give Your Employees Autonomy
Giving your employees more autonomy simply translates to them that you trust them to do the right thing. This initiates a sense of self-responsibility in your employees. This is something that has been in practice in many businesses for decades. Your employees will make bold choices when needed because you have empowered them by giving them autonomy. It is something that also saves a lot of time. It makes employees more engaged as they feel more responsible and they would work harder to make sure that they do the right thing that benefits the business and saves the resources.
3. Get To Know Your Employees Better
A lot of businesses that report low employee engagement are the ones that maintain a distance between workforce, management, and administration. In modern businesses, such behavior can lead to several problems for the business. So, it is very important to make sure that you know your employees and they know about you. There are a lot of ways to get to know your employees better. For example, you can invite the teams for dinner or drinks. Also, ask the managers to know the employees better. The workforce will feel more connected to the management, and administration through this process. This enhanced connection will lead to better employee engagement.
4. Implement A Peer-to-Peer Recognition Program
It is very important to develop and implement such a program. It would show the employees that you care about your employees. Some perform better and they should be rewarded based on their performance. It is something that will give other employees motivation to do better. Also, it would make the top performance feel recognized. It is a strategy that has multiple benefits. For example, the high-performance individuals who are rewarded will feel more recognized. So, they will work harder and try to outdo themselves. It will also motivate the new employees to learn and achieve higher results to get that level of recognition. So, it will help you develop a new workforce that is more motivated than the previous one. It will create some level of healthy competition between your employees. In doing so, it will make all of the employees more engaged in the process.
5. Offer Career Advancement Options
This is also one of the most important strategies for better employee engagement. If you are not offering any career advancement options to your workforce, it will not perform as it should and you will notice a low employee engagement rate. But if you offer better career advancement options to your employees, they will be more focused on the job and more invested. It is a strategy that not only businesses implement but many government agencies also do. They offer their employees multiple career advancement options as a reward for their performance throughout their careers. So, the employees become more invested in the process. This is how you can achieve a better employee engagement rate.
6. Listen To Their Concerns and Feedback
It may be an old strategy but it is still one of the most effective ones. By listening to the concerns, and feedback of your employees, you will be able to figure out the issues at every level. These issues can sometimes lead to spiral disasters and employee dissatisfaction, that ultimately leads to low employee engagement. In some cases, employees prefer to leave the company if their feedback and concerns are not heard. So, this can also create employee retention problems. To prevent all of this, you just need to listen to the concerns and feedback of the employees. Ask the managers in your company to talk to the employees on a daily or weekly basis about the issues and try to resolve them. It is a small thing but can save your company a lot of resources. Also, it can help you achieve better engagement with your employees.
7. Implement Community and Team Building Framework:
If you want your employees to be 100% invested in helping the company achieve its goals, you will have to create a framework that encourages a sense of community and team building. Employees will feel more connected to the business with these practices and they will perform better to make sure that they complete the given tasks. Due to the recent events of COVID-19, it has been really hard for the HR managers to devise strategies or any framework that works for the away employees or remote workforce. Most of the experts have spoken about this subject. They think that companies can engage with more employees that are working remotely by the means of video conferences, not just about the work but also about the daily routines and normal talks. To put it simply, create an online environment where employees feel confident and connected.
8. Provide Extra Perks and Privileges
Offering extra perks and privileges to your employees is also a good solution. It is something that has been tested and tried for a very long time and it is still considered one of the most effective tools. Employees that are more engaged and invested in the company culture, are rewarded with perks and privileges such as tours, memberships, special tickets, stipends, and equity packages. All of these will make the employees more loyal to your company. Not only that, but it will also help you encourage other people in your company to follow in their footsteps and achieve these perks.
9. Make Employee’s Well-being A Top Priority
If your employees are not well, and healthy, they won’t perform as they should, and the overall engagement rate will also remain very low. So, it is important to make sure that your employees remain healthy. You can achieve that by taking steps such as making the office a place where employees can do some workout, yoga, or exercise. A lot of businesses provide complete gymnasiums to their employees along with swimming pools and showers. This technique works for the people who are at the job site, but for those who are working from home, you will need to make sure that they get the rest they need. A lot of employees suffer from extreme burnout because of their work. So, make sure that you give them the burden they can take.
10. Help Employees Achieve Financial Wellness
Helping your employees achieve financial wellness is also a good thing, as it would reflect your commitment to the workforce. The recent economic recession has hit everyone very hard. So make sure that you communicate with your employees and ensure that you will try to help them out. It does not mean that you should start giving cheques as a bonus to your employees, instead, it simply means that you provide them with financial advice that they can use for investment and insurance, etc. If your employees feel financially secure by being with your company, it will give them the motivation to stay invested and engaged with it.
These were a few successful tips/strategies that HR managers can use to get better employee engagement. You don’t need to implement all of these, you can select the ones that you think stand a better chance regarding your specific conditions. Whatever you choose, just make sure that you follow through with it so that it can be implemented in the true sense as it will benefit both you and the organization.
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