What are the most important steps you can take to increase employee engagement in the workplace, and improve company culture and job satisfaction?
Just as the roots are crucial for a tree's growth and stability, employee involvement is the foundation upon which a prosperous business stands.
In this blog post, we'll dig deep into the significance of employee engagement and provide you with the essential tools to cultivate a thriving workforce in your organisation.
In this blog post, you will learn everything you need to know about engaging employees so that they feel valued, supported, and invested in achieving organisational goals.
Get ready to plant the seeds of success!
What is employee engagement?
Employee engagement in the workplace is: a measure of the enthusiasm, commitment, and emotional connection employees have to their organisation ✅.
Employee engagement is not: entirely the same as employee satisfaction, although people often confuse the two ❌.
Employee engagement is more centred around motivation and purpose, not just happiness. This means engagement also has more bearing on performance and business results.
When people are engaged in their work, they not only perform better – they're also healthier, happier, and more likely to stay longer in the organisation.
There's a wide range of benefits of employee engagement, but building an engaged company culture requires a strategic approach. Which we are going to break down soon.
Why is employee engagement important?
The benefits of employee engagement are numerous and include improved productivity, increased employee retention, and reduced sick leave and absenteeism. We've written more about the advantages of an engaged workforce in the article 8 benefits of employee engagement.
How can companies improve employee engagement right now?
One of the most effective ways to improve employee engagement is to use a data-driven approach. This means collecting employee feedback through regular engagement surveys, taking action based on that feedback, and measuring the impact of those actions.
Here’s how you can do that in three steps:
Start collecting employee feedback: The best way to learn how your employees feel, and why the way they do, is to ask them. Pulse surveys provide a way to do that regularly, at scale. They give you valuable real time insights into what is working well in your organisation and where there are areas for improvement. Collecting employee feedback will itself give previously disengaged employees a sense of being heard and valued, which is beneficial to engagement. But to reach sustainable high engagement levels, the next step is perhaps the most important one: to turn your insights into action.
Take action based on that feedback: After gathering employee feedback, the next step is to take action on those insights. Employees who don't believe any action will be taken based on their feedback are much more likely to disengage. Making sure the feedback leads to tangible change is essential to increasing overall engagement. Eletive gives HR, managers, and employees the tools for an efficient and collaborative action-planning process. In the platform, managers and employees can work together to follow up on the survey results – and track the impact of the actions taken.
Measure the impact of those actions: This means tracking key metrics such as employee retention rates, productivity, and job satisfaction to determine whether the changes made have had a positive effect. By tracking these metrics over time, companies can see the impact of their employee engagement initiatives and make data-driven decisions about how to further improve engagement. You can get these metrics in report form fast with Eletive. Here’s an example of what that looks like…
This is a simple framework. So now let’s dive into more granular detail. We’re going to explore more ways that organisations can create the conditions for high employee engagement and job satisfaction.
How to improve employee engagement – 10 tips
1. Creating a positive workplace culture This involves revamping job descriptions to align with organisational values, encouraging participation in resource groups, and providing flexibility for personal interests.
Organisations should ensure that job descriptions accurately reflect the company’s mission and core values. Doing so will help employees understand their role within the organisation and how it contributes to its success.
Flexibility is also key when creating a positive workplace culture. Allowing employees time off for personal projects or passion pursuits helps them feel supported by their employer while still having the freedom to pursue their own interests outside of work hours.
2. Empowering employees through autonomy
Autonomy means giving workers the freedom to make decisions related to their jobs independently while still providing support when needed.
Providing employees with autonomy fosters an atmosphere of ownership and encourages greater motivation and contentment.
Investing in training programs for skill development is one way employers can provide autonomy for employees.
Offering staff the chance to gain fresh knowledge and hone existing talents, which can be applied to their job duties, is another way employers can grant autonomy.
3. Providing leaders and managers with the tools they need to increase engagement
Communication and collaboration are important drivers of employee engagement.
Managers who share the survey results with their teams so that they can come up with plans together will often see the most progress. When the whole team is involved in improving engagement and performance together, it creates a stronger sense of ownership that benefits progress.
With Eletive, managers can not only access their team's engagement data in realtime. They can also export the results into beautiful Powerpoint presentations with just a click. This makes it easy to share the insights and work on action-planning with their teams.
4. Setting processes for performance management
Communication and recognition are key ingredients in healthy company culture. Encourage your managers and employees to have regular one-to-one meetings to discuss goals and professional development. Creating 1:1 templates is one way to support managers and employees in their collaboration.
In the Eletive platform, managers and team members have a shared agenda and can create action plans together. Notes, comments, and action plans are saved on the platform, making tracking development and goal fulfilment a lot easier. The Eletive platform also generates science-based advice and suggested actions for different scenarios. The advice and suggested actions can then be turned into to-dos and checklists with just a click.
5. Using incentives to increase engagement
Companies can use incentives to improve employee engagement by using them as a fuel that ignites the fire of motivation in their employees.
Just like fuel ignites a fire and keeps it burning, incentives can ignite the motivation within employees and keep them engaged in their work. Here are a couple of examples: Professional development opportunities
Employees who wish to improve their skills and knowledge will jump at opportunities to attend training programs or conferences. It helps them grow professionally. While making them feel like a valued member of their organisation.
Flexible work arrangement
Companies can offer flexible work arrangements, such as remote work or flexible hours, as an incentive to promote work-life balance and increase job satisfaction. This helps employees feel more in control of their work and personal lives, leading to increased engagement and productivity.
6. Improving the onboarding processes
Designing an effective onboarding process is crucial for improving employee engagement in a company. Onboarding is the process of introducing new hires to the company's culture, values, and work processes. By doing this effectively, companies can help new employees feel welcomed, informed, and confident, leading to increased engagement and productivity.
However, designing an effective onboarding process is a difficult and hard-fought process. It requires significant planning, resources, and ongoing evaluation to ensure its success. Eletive offers specific question batteries for tracking engagement through the onboarding process, to help you understand where there is opportunity for improvement. The onboarding surveys can be fully automated to save time.
7. Arranging engaging activities
Activities provide a break from the daily routine and can help employees feel more connected to their colleagues and the company. By participating in activities, employees can also develop new skills, gain new perspectives, and build confidence. To ensure that activities are effective in boosting employee engagement, companies can follow these tips:
Involve employees in the planning process
Align activities with company values
Provide a variety of activities to cater to different interests and preferences
Incorporate games, prizes, or food to make the activities more fun.
Celebrate the successes of the activities and recognize the contributions of employees. Here are some activities that companies can try in the workplace:
Lunch and Learns: Host lunchtime workshops where employees can learn new skills, such as public speaking, time management, or stress reduction.
Volunteer Days: Plan a day where employees can volunteer together for a cause that aligns with the company's values.
Game Nights: Host a game night where employees can play board games, video games, or trivia.
Exercise Classes: Offer exercise classes, such as yoga or Zumba, during lunch or after work.
Team-Building Activities: Plan team-building activities, such as escape rooms or scavenger hunts, to help build camaraderie and teamwork.
Mentorship Programs: Create a mentorship program where employees can learn from more experienced colleagues and develop new skills.
8. Remembering to include your remote employees
Increasing employee engagement remotely can be challenging, as it requires companies to create a sense of connection and community despite physical distance. It's like trying to build a bridge across a vast and turbulent ocean, where the winds of communication can be fickle and the waves of isolation can be overwhelming.
One of the biggest challenges is the lack of face-to-face interaction, which can make it harder for employees to feel connected to their colleagues and the company. Remote workers may also struggle with distractions at home, feelings of isolation, and a lack of clear communication from their managers.
To increase employee engagement remotely, companies can try the following strategies:
Encourage communication by using tools like instant messaging, email, or project management software.
Provide support and resources. For example, access to mental health services, ergonomic equipment, or training on remote work best practices.
Create a sense of community: For example by hosting virtual events, creating online forums for discussion and collaboration, or celebrating milestones and achievements.
To help track engagement when people work remotely, companies can also use Eletive's specific question batteries designed for remote workers. These batteries can provide insights into how remote workers are feeling and what they need to stay engaged and motivated.
In addition, custom surveys can be fully automated with Eletive, saving time and effort for the company. These surveys can be automatically added to the standard question battery only for remote workers, allowing companies to gather specific feedback and insights tailored to their remote workforce.
Now that we’ve covered our 10 tips, you might be thinking the following…
But “How do I improve my employee engagement survey participation.” Lucky for you we've written extensively about ways to do that in this article.
Conclusion
In summary, upping worker commitment is an essential element of any thriving enterprise.
By establishing clear goals and objectives, providing regular feedback, encouraging collaboration among team members, offering incentives to motivate employees and fostering a positive work environment can help create an atmosphere that encourages improved employee engagement.
Taking the time to invest in your workforce will ultimately result in increased performance and productivity for your organisation. Book a demo now, we’d love to show you how we can help you do that with our comprehensive suite of employee engagement features…
Frequently Asked Questions
How can Human Resources (HR) and People teams improve employee engagement?
At Eletive, we believe the best thing HR can do to improve employee engagement is to provide the organization with the tools to increase engagement together. The Eletive platform is built to empower not only HR, but managers and employees, to drive the change they wish to see in the organization. This way, everyone is included in building a better workplace – together.
How can leaders and managers improve employee engagement?
Leaders and managers are key in building an engaged work culture. They need to lead by example and create a psychologically safe and supportive environment for their teams. One of the most important things as a leader is to be able to communicate with and listen to your team.
With Eletive, managers get the tools to gather feedback and gain valuable realtime insights about how their team members experience their work. This paved the way for important conversations. Regular staff meetings and 1:1s are also an essential tool in the manager toolbox, and Eletive supports regular 1:1s with scheduling, templates, and space for documentation.
What are the drivers behind employee engagement?
Employee engagement is an umbrella term that contains many different aspects of the employee experience. The standard question battery that form the basis for the Eletive surveys and for the Eletive Engagement Index covers 11 different drivers behind employee engagement.
Read more about the different drivers of employee engagement in our article: The best employee engagement survey questions – what to ask and why
What are best practices for implementing employee engagement surveys?
In our article Best practices for employee engagement surveys we write about employee engagement survey best practices, as well as some of the most common pitfalls to avoid. We'll also highlight the different ways that Eletive supports employee survey best practices.
What are the three C's of employee engagement?
The three C's of employee engagement are Communication, Connection, and Commitment.
Establishing clear lines of dialogue between staff and management is essential to guarantee employees feel appreciated and respected in the workplace.
Developing strong connections between team members helps foster a sense of community that encourages collaboration and boosts morale.
Finally, creating an environment where employees are committed to their work allows them to take ownership over their tasks which leads to increased performance levels.
By focusing on these three C's, HR Managers can create an engaged and productive workforce.
