The Basics of an Employee Engagement Initiative

Developing a strategy for improving employee engagement is imperative to your organization’s success. However, sometimes the concept can be overwhelming when initially evaluating the problem. The most important thing to remember is that fully-engaged employees tend to have a positive attitude about work, whereas disengaged employees tend to have a negative attitude about nearly every aspect of the company.

Your initial strategy should focus on motivation, recognition, and building relationships. Use these basic tips to start your employee engagement initiative.

Recognition

Employees want to be recognized for their hard work. What is the motivation to work harder if no one is ever recognized? Create enthusiasm and motivation by recognizing hard working employees. You can recognize these employees with company-wide emails celebrating their good work, or how they’ve set a good example for a certain process. It’s even better to thank them for their hard work in person. As the boss, you can take an employee out to lunch and discuss what a great job they’re doing. A recognized employee is much more likely to stay engaged.

Effectively communicate to build relationships

Many employees do not fully trust their leaders. In most cases, that is because the leaders do not communicate effectively. It is imperative that employees are confident in and trust their managers in order to improve employee engagement. Sometimes, people without access to all of the information that went into making a decision, but now must execute the plan, simply cannot understand why a particular decision was made. If employees feel the “higher-ups” are too far removed from day-to-day tasks, they are likely to lose confidence in their decision-making abilities and eventually disengage.

Fun = Motivation

When organizations plan to inspire a behavior change, they often forget that a little fun can go a long way. As an example, many companies have initiated a “greener” office to save on energy costs. But, pressuring employees to adopt new behaviors by stressing budget issues, or other negative reinforcement, can cause employees to resist the change. Instead of guilting your employees into adopting a “greener” office, you can make the challenge into a game or add a positive incentive.

Get creative with your games. In fact, you can hold a creative brainstorming meeting for everyone in the company in which you ask employees to contribute their ideas for an eco-friendly office. You can offer rewards in exchange for ideas that cut energy costs.

Let your employees know their input is valued

The key to developing an effective strategy involves enabling employees to reasonably voice their opinions and concerns. This is best accomplished through an employee engagement survey. Once you have the data you need, you can start your action plan. Then, resurvey periodically to gauge your progress. Involve your employees and watch their engagement soar.

The level of employee engagement affects multiple areas of your organization. Satisfied customers are one result of engaged employees, and this, in turn, means higher profits for your company. NBRI has helped many companies just like yours achieve great employee engagement levels, which is turn drives financial performance. Contact us today to get started.