Top Seven Ideas for Employee Engagement

Improving employee engagement goes a long way towards making a company more productive and profitable. Employees who are motivated at work can go the extra mile to accomplish targets. They can also infuse energy and positivity at the office, and become evangelist of the firm, its products and services. Simply put, engaged, passionate, and motivated employees are perhaps the best assets that any company would have.

Here are seven ideas for employee engagement that company executives can try at their offices.

1. Reinforce the Benefits of Working for the Firm

Most of the time, corporate executives think the only way to engage their employees is to add new benefits. But there are certain strategies that HR managers can do to reinforce the value of the current benefits package of the company they’re working at.

One is to make the benefits more accessible to the personnel. Create an intranet site where employees can log in and get information and make transactions for the benefits they are entitled to, such as pension plan, housing and car loans. This is a clever way of making people realize that they are well-taken care of by the company that employs them.

2. Listen to Employees

The second in the list of ideas for employee engagement is for executives to listen to the staff. Listening to the rank and file enables the management to know and respond the most urgent employee concerns. In a way, it can also save time and money on the part of the organization as the HR or corporate planning departments won’t have to plan and implement plans that employees won’t value or appreciate at all.

There are lots of ways to listen to employees. The conduct of town hall meetings can encourage discussion and dialogue with the staff. Spot polls on the intranet can also generate employee feedback in the same way that focus groups can.

Company executives can also explore the idea of having their own blogs. There are many topics that they can discuss in their blogs, such as the impact of a new IT program on employee productivity. Blogging can connect company executives to employees, and even enable leaders to learn from the staff.

3. Keep the Leaders Visible

Related to company executives blogging is the idea that leaders should be kept front and center in an organization. Employees will feel more connected with the company if they can see the big bosses all the time, whether in good or in bad times. Eventually, they will feel more valued and can go the extra mile in the conduct of their duties.

Leaders should be present during company events. They should not be shy about communicating even in the bad times, like benefit cutbacks, layoffs, and change of company strategies or policies. While most executives would rather not talk about these developments, employees want to hear it from their bosses how layoffs and cutbacks can positively affect the long-term strategy for success of the company.

Company executives should also make it a habit to walk around the offices if their time permits. An old habit that dates back decades ago, walking around will enable senior officers to know more about their company operations.

4. Recognize Noteworthy Gains

Companies don’t need to conduct monthly activities as these can be counterproductive and costly. But simple celebrations like rewarding people or units for accomplishing their monthly goals should inspire the staff, and glue together teams.

Even milestones like birthdays, retirements and promotions should cause simple celebrations. These important moments can make people realize that they are valued and appreciated at work.

5. Make Social Media Work

Social media has changed the way people interact with brands and institutions, and harnessing it is one of the best ideas for employee engagement.

Numerous studies have shown that employees who are encouraged to share or re-tweet stories about their firms on social media tend to be more loyal and engaged to their employers. As such, some of the top companies in the world create content and encourage their workers to be the first to share them on social channels like Facebook and Twitter.

6. Make the Office More Fun to Work In

Most of the time, disengaged employees dread the mere thought of going to work. This can be remedied by making the office a more fun and engaging place to work in, with activities like annual wellness day, on-site yoga, healthy catered lunches, or maybe trying an open-office floor plan.

7. Provide Training

Finally, one of the most often neglected ideas for employee engagement is providing the staff with relevant training. Companies should aim to send their workers to training at least once a year. Other enrichment tools like further education and workshops can advance the knowledge and skills of workers, and make them feel that their employers value them.