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You Need an Employee Engagement Strategy That You Can Count On. Try This 

Engaged employees will save a company thousands or millions of dollars each year depending upon the size of the company. A number of studies show that roughly half of all employees are neither engaged nor disengaged resulting in lower productivity and lower motivation to do right by the company or simply to do a better job to make even basic improvements on the job. An effective employee engagement strategy will make your organization better in every way and increase overall customer satisfaction.

Understanding the purpose

Engaged employees are those who believe in the company mission, those who would recommend a friend to work for the company, those who feel they have an internal career path and those individuals who feel their talents are being utilized, recognized and valued. An engaged employee is not about employee satisfaction or the level of happiness they feel at the end of the day. The reason employee engagement is critical is to ensure each individual takes pride in their work and the company they represent. If an individual is lacking in these areas, they are likely to seek out alternative employment more frequently and to negatively affect customer satisfaction both of which will cost the company thousands of dollars per person.

Employee engagement surveys help to determine the departments and teams that are excelling and those that need more assistance on improving engagement. This process will also point out specific issues that are common throughout the organization to be able to develop new processes and procedures to increase engagement and minimize disengagement. The frequency of such surveys may vary from an in-depth company-wide survey once a year to several times a year utilizing a survey strategy of smaller sample populations with a significantly smaller focus.

Bottom up not top down

Present an engagement survey to those employees who perform the important daily tasks and have managers present findings to their teams in a casual setting so that they can discuss results and develop ideas for improvement such as to develop employee rewards programs. Speak directly to those individuals whose workplace experience the strategy is meant to improve rather than the often disconnected managers and directors. The manager should be an active part of the process in a facilitating role rather than as a directing role. Once the manager points out the areas requiring improvement, the team should then provide individual feedback and opinions to determine the best solutions to reach the best survey scores in future.

An action plan

Disengaged employees will cost the company money and create an atmosphere of negativity costing you talent and customers. You must establish an action plan to create as many engaged employees as possible. Remember, an engaged employee is not about their happiness or job satisfaction but rather more to do with their company pride and the pride or passion they have for their work. It is essential that all team members have an opportunity to voice their opinions pertaining to each concern raised from within their team surveys. Only your team can tell you the ways to improve their levels of engagement and each individual, team and department will likely be somewhat different. Once the team determines ideas to improve upon engagement, take the time to determine an action plan to ensure these discussions end in positive results.

An effective employee engagement strategy will help your company retain talent, improve customer satisfaction and save money. It is essential to seek feedback directly from those individuals performing the daily tasks rather than only those individuals in managerial positions. An action plan based on the feedback from team members will transform your business into a dynamic organization with long-term sustainability.

Author Bio

JP George grew up in a small town in Washington. After receiving a Master’s degree in Public Relations, JP has worked in a variety of positions, from agencies to corporations all across the globe. Experience has made JP an expert in topics relating to leadership, talent management, and organisational business.

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