Employee Engagement: Activating it During a Pandemic
At Who Staffing, we know that people are the lifeblood of every organization. More specifically, the employees. Without them, no business could function effectively and because of that, keeping them engaged is essential for happiness, productivity, and retention. So what is employee engagement and how can you establish it in your own organization.
What is Employee Engagement?
The foundation of employee engagement is finding ways to encourage and motivate employees to commit themselves to the goals of your business. This translates into employees giving their best each day, so investing in employee engagement will pay dividends.
A recent Gallup study showed that 52% of American workers “just show up” to work, and 17% even consider themselves “actively disengaged”. That is staggering! These workers were present across industries and seniority levels. It’s clear that a majority of organizations have locked potential within their workforce and many of it could be tapped into with an employee engagement program.
It’s important to note that employee engagement is not synonymous with job satisfaction. Someone who is satisfied with their job isn’t necessarily actively involved in advancing the organization to reach its goals.
How to Establish Employee Engagement
There is no perfect recipe for employee engagement and oftentimes it depends on the current state of your organization, but we did go ahead and curate a list of tips for boosting employee engagement.
Clarify goals
The whole name of the employee engagement game is getting them on board with your business goals. If you don’t have clearly defined business goals, how will anyone know what to work toward? Set annual, semi-annual, quarterly, and even monthly goals. This will also make clear how each employee’s role fits within the organization and what their expectations are. To more clearly define this, set goals for individual teams or departments.
Supply the right tools
This is often overlooked, but imagine trying to do a job that you don’t have all the right tools for. Not being armed with everything necessary is an automatic set up for failure. We typically see this happen in large organizations, where employees experience more roadblocks to getting things done. This is a great topic to ask questions about in your survey!
Give individual attention
We’ve all been there. You order something labeled “one-size-fits-all” and learn it’s a lie when it doesn’t fit you comfortably. Businesses are the same in that they aren’t suited for everyone. That’s where giving individuals attention plays an important role in making sure each employee feels appreciated, heard, and fit for their role. You should also use this time to understand their individual motivations, personality traits, and tendencies. Knowing these things will allow every manager to better manage each individual. Another piece to this is giving recognition to individuals when it’s due. Not giving recognition to employees is a sure-fire way to dampen someone’s spirits and create an opportunity for them to grow resentment toward you and the organization.
Provide training, coaching, and mentoring
A study by Staples.com found that over ¼ of employees said assistance with professional development opportunities was a must-have for new jobs. Investing in employee development will garner trust, loyalty, and engagement by showing the organization cares about their advancement but also allowing employees to build on skills that will help them do their jobs better and help reach business goals.
Ask for feedback and listen to your employees
To be an effective leader, you should constantly be identifying inefficiencies, problems, and opportunities. One way to do this is by talking to your employees and asking for feedback. They can see things from a different perspective and on different levels than you, so they can offer great insights into ways the company can improve. On top of gaining these insights, you will also make your employees feel valued, leading to higher morale and engagement.
Get social
By offering opportunities for social gatherings and interactions, your employees are given opportunities to build greater connections outside of the workplace, as can you. Social gatherings are great for relationship building, helping them care more for where they work and who they are working with.
How to Measure Employee Engagement
The best way to measure employee engagement is through a survey. Surveys built specifically for employee engagement measure two primary factors: engagement with the organization and engagement with one’s manager. Custom Insight breaks it down further, identifying organizational factors as culture and strategic alignment and managerial factors like motivation and managing execution.
Organizational Engagement Factors
Culture
Does your organization have a culture that motivates, empowers, challenges, and respects its employees?
Check out our blog about creating and maintaining a strong office culture.
Strategic Alignment
Are your goals clear? Do your employees understand where the organization is headed and how they will contribute to that overall success?
Managerial Engagement Factors
Motivation
Are the relationships between managers and employees strong to where there is a development of cohesiveness? The best managers have great people skills.
Managing Execution
Are expectations clearly communicated? Are employees held accountable while being granted needed flexibility to deliver results?
Conclusion
For a survey to be accurate and capture all the information you need, you should craft your questions around the aforementioned employee engagement factors. Here is a survey template that you can use to guide you as you craft your own. If you’re wondering how to respond to your employee engagement survey results, check out this article.
