From this article you will learn:
What is employee engagement, and why do we need to engage employees?
The main task of any business is the efficiency of processes: production, sales, interaction with clients, which are aimed at obtaining the maximum profit.
What happens if you don’t know the strategies for engaging employees?
An employee who is not involved in the process and works for the record cannot give the business the result it needs and negatively influences the discipline and general atmosphere in the team.
Such an employee may allow himself to be late, not perform or openly sabotage the tasks assigned, negligent to the duties. As a result, company plans are not met, and the business loses money.
The advantages of employee engagement:
Advantage 1. Engaged employees increase their productivity, which means the company’s profits increase.
Advantage 2. Engaging employees means keeping more dedicated employees in the company and increasing their numbers.
Engaged employees won’t want to change companies in a month. It means that supervisors won’t have to spend extra time finding and training potential workers.
Advantage 3.The more interested an employee is in the company’s success, the more they will get into all aspects of it. This will allow them to come up with new development concepts and promotional strategies.
Employee engagement will make the company stronger and the team more creative.
Advantage 4. Engaged employees trust the management more, feel more comfortable in the workplace, and argue less with their colleagues. A comfortable corporate culture is one type of strategy for engaging employees.
6 Key strategies for engaging employees
It is important to understand that there is no universal strategy for engaging employees for the entire company.
Selection of the strategy for engaging employees is a complex process, which depends on a large number of factors: from the average age of the staff to the goals of the business.
Strategy for engaging employees and motivation should be based primarily on people’s needs and personal motivations.
The corporate culture may be common, while working conditions, bonuses, and praise may be different for each department or a specific person.
In order to engage employees, it is necessary to feel the company and people well, to understand the goals of the business and employees, what their needs, fears, expectations, the situation in life at the moment.
There are two main strategies for engaging employees — financial and non-financial motivation.
Financial motivation is associated with monetary payments. For example, bonuses.
Intangible motivation rewards are given in the non-monetary form. For example, trips, certificates, corporate events.
Engaging employees is an important mission of any company, but few know how to do it wisely.
The top 6 strategies for engaging employees:
Strategy 1. Treat the employee seriously and with respect. Allow staff to speak up and offer their ideas.
An employee who is valued and has a voice in decision-making takes responsibility. They enjoy coming to work and take pride in doing what they can to move the company forward.
It is often important for the employee to feel that they are important and belong to the company and its bottom line. Therefore, recognition will allow them to be part of the team and feel their value as a professional.
Strategy 2. Create a comfortable work environment.
Employees stay happy at work because of the proper corporate culture, which has a positive and inspiring atmosphere.
Even if financial motivation is the main motivation for a person, there will always be another — individual motivation. It can be, for example, the proximity of the office to home, a comfortable environment in the team, or the opportunity for professional development.
If you take into account these factors, you can be able to create strategies for engaging employees.
Strategy 3. Don’t forget to stimulate your staff with financial benefits.
Bonuses, holiday and retirement benefits, employee discounts, and travel allowances are attractive and make the company especially interesting for its employees.
Everyone works to get paid first and foremost and cover their needs, so financial motivation is a universal tool to engage employees.
Keep in mind, however, that if you choose strategy for engaging employees with only money, you may fall into a trap:
- Financial motivation has a short period of validity, usually 3 to 6 months, after which the level of motivation will begin to decline.
- If you engage employees only with money, the opposite effect can occur. Employees will ask for a raise for each additional task, the scope of work or project, and consistently every 3-6 months.
Strategy 4. Be open in your actions.
Care must be taken to ensure that there is no tension between departments and also within work teams.
Two tools to engage employee and create a comfortable corporate culture:
- Design a user-friendly internal communication system so employees can easily share job suggestions. For example, start an employee journal.
- Have regular meetings between employees and management to discuss important decisions and company strategy.
Strategy 5. Arrange events outside of work hours that will help strengthen relationships within the team.
Corporate outings, joint sporting events, and team-building activities create a strong corporate culture that helps employees bond and better understand each other’s work processes.
Strategy 6. Don’t forget the basic needs of your employees.
Be mindful of the psychological aspects of the individual to engage employees.
How to engage an employee? Top rules and tips Employee engagement mistakes
Let’s review what you need to do to engage employees effectively:
- Understand business goals and needs.
- Understand the needs and expectations of employees.
- Know the company’s budget and capabilities.
- Ask employees about their willingness to consider the company culture.
If you exclude even one factor, employee engagement will prove difficult. Both the business and the team can suffer as a result.
In order to properly build a system of motivation, we have prepared a list of the main mistakes in choosing an employee engagement strategy.
Mistake № 1: Fail to align employee engagement system with business goals.
Develop a strategy and correlate the company’s goals and objectives with an incentive system that the company can afford. The initial goal of employee engagement is to increase performance, so it’s important to understand the business’ goals for at least one year.
Mistake № 2: Don’t look for new solutions.
Mistake № 3: Don’t know the needs of employees and don’t focus on the desires of the staff.
To engage employees, conduct an employee survey.
The survey can be as few as 3-5 questions, but you’ll learn from employees their needs, wants, and fears.
The questions should be open-ended, but with suggested answer choices, so it’s easier to process.
When designing a survey, it’s important to offer only those response options that the company is willing and able to implement.
This way, people will feel valued, and this will engage employees and motivate them to be productive.
Mistake № 4: Don’t accept employee ideas and always reject them.
Involve employees in important decisions. Don’t ignore their ideas and objections.
Mistake № 5: Don’t prepare employees to implement an employee engagement system
Remember, anything about the issue of monetary motivation will cause people to have questions and concerns.
Negative reactions can arise from a lack of information from employees.
To make employees feel engaged, tell them how you will involve your staff in advance.
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Now you have the understanding and instruction on what strategies for engaging employees to choose. Remember that a good employee motivation system should be based on the needs and desires of employees and the capabilities and goals of the company.
Do you have questions about employee engagement? Or maybe you would like to share your experience in creating a motivation system and tell us about mistakes in this matter? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments.
