Keeping your employees happy is essential to maintaining a productive and profitable business. Engaged employees are more motivated to do their best work, drive innovation, and stay with the company longer. In addition, they’re inspired to create a great customer experience that will foster loyal relationships with vendors, suppliers, partners, and of course, the client.
Employee engagement can be nurtured with ideas and strategies tailored to your company’s unique culture, vision, mission, and values. The following are some of the latest and most effective employee engagement ideas and strategies you can implement in your organization.
#1 – Enhance Communication
While it may seem obvious, communication is perhaps the most important part of any engagement strategy. However, communication is about more than dictating information. It’s also about listening and encouraging feedback, even if it’s unsolicited. Consider asking employees the following questions to help you determine if your communication is effective:
- Are there any areas of our business where employees are unsure or uninformed?
- What additional clarity on various aspects of the business could be helpful to improve employee engagement?
- How can we build on our current culture to enhance collaboration, creativity, and productivity?
- How can we encourage employees to share their ideas and feedback with leadership?
- In what ways do you think we could improve communication?
These questions will make your employees feel more included in the company’s business decisions and that they matter. In addition, employees who feel valued will be more engaged in their work.
#2 – Recognize Achievements
While pay raises and promotions are great for recognizing achievement annually, they don’t do much to bolster employee engagement in day-to-day operations. Providing recognition on a more regular basis will give your employees more frequent, timely feedback about their performance and impact on the business.
Different departments and jobs require different types of recognition, so you may want to consider some of these options for rewarding employees:
- Thank you notes and cards
- Give employees shout-outs in meetings for great suggestions
- Publicly give an employee the “Employee of the Month” award or
- Hold a monthly drawing for a small gift card or prize
- Provide routine lunches or dinners with leadership
While it may seem unimportant to recognize employees for doing routine work, it’s actually a great way to boost morale and remind them that their hard work is noticed.
#3 – Train Employees for Ongoing Success & Development
Employee engagement can only increase when employees feel like they have value to the company or organization. That is why it’s imperative to provide employees with training opportunities so they can gain new skills and stay relevant to the company’s goals and objectives.
If you’re training employees, be sure to consider teaching them how to do the following:
- Handle conflict in a productive way
- Overcome workplace biases and embrace diversity
- Provide more constructive criticism or leadership
- Adopt new technology that could help them perform their jobs better
These skills will help employees do their jobs more effectively and allow them to grow within the company.
#4 – Team Building Exercises
One of the best ways to keep employees engaged and active is to foster a sense of community amongst coworkers, staff members, and leadership. The best way to do that is through team-building exercises. Team building activities improve communication and coordination among employees, which leads to an overall more positive work environment.
These days, many businesses are forgoing more traditional team-building exercises such as ropes courses and trust falls and instead replacing them with off-site meetings or social events, including:
- Scavenger hunts
- Indoor rock climbing
- Laser tag
- Escape rooms
Whatever you do as a team-building event, make sure that your employees get to socialize with each other and enjoy themselves. The more fun they have, the better their work will be.
Employee Engagement is Essential to Meeting Operational Goals
Without effective employee engagement strategies, businesses and organizations risk compromising the quality of their work and alienating themselves from their employees. By communicating effectively and more openly, rewarding regularly, offering specialized training, and fostering team-building among employees, you can create a more positive work environment that will contribute to your company’s growth.
