Whatever stage your business is at, employee engagement and general satisfaction should always be at the forefront of your mind. No business can run without its employees and at the heart of good business, the operation is making sure that your labor force is produced. There have been countless studies into the effects of high employee satisfaction on company-wide efficiency, all of which indicate that happy employees are productive ones.
Employee engagement is an extension of this satisfaction. Happy employees are more likely to care about the company’s mission and goals, aligning their own success with the businesses. This is the core concept of employee engagement; staff who innovate and work hard because they care about what they do and see the value in the organization that they work for.
Boosting employee engagement promotes business growth and employee retention. the question is how can you, as an employer, improve engagement levels? Here are three ideas that we have put together with that question in mind.
Team Building Events:
Whilst team building is often viewed with skepticism, the truth is that it can have a drastic impact on how productive your employees are. Team building offers multiple benefits from an employee engagement perspective, here are some examples:
The most obvious benefit is that a good team building activity is fun. Enjoyable events breaking up working life are always appreciated by staff and as we have discussed, happy employees are engaged ones. This morale boost from enjoying something fun has a ripple effect around your organization, with this positive mindset remaining effective for a very long time.
Another benefit, which is much more underestimated, is the learning opportunities available. Team building activities aren’t designed to solely be fun, they are meant to have a learning outcome. Team building is almost a fun form of training, where staff practice skills that will benefit them at work and in turn, benefit your business.
These are just two examples of the benefits. With a little research, you will be able to discover what a well-placed team building event can really do.
Rewards and Recognition:
Implementing an effective rewards system is another great way of improving employee engagement. Positive reinforcement is an incredibly strong force, which is why publicly rewarding your best employees is so powerful. Not only does this encourage your hardest workers to continue putting the effort in, but it also pushes the rest of the staff to match their level and try to achieve the same recognition.
There are countless ways to reward employees, ranging from simple thank you to fully paid lunches. The key to successfully rewarding employees in a constructive manner is to make rewards both attainable and equal in value to the achievement they are associated with. Don’t give a salesman a box of chocolates for making the company millions, that will seem a little lackluster for what they have done.
Information Availability:
As a final, less concrete point, ensuring that your employees know the businesses goals and moral ethics is extremely important. To encourage your employees to align themselves with your business you require multiple ingredients. Firstly, they need to be happy. Secondly, they need to enjoy working for you and care about the company’s success. Finally, they need to be aware of the company’s goals and mission.
Many organizations struggle with this third and final point. These companies have incredible cultures where everyone loves coming to work but nobody is aware of where the company wants to be and what their vision is for the future. Without this information, employees can never reach total engagement because they don’t know what they should be targeting.
Making your organization’s vision and mission statements visible is absolutely essential towards improving employee engagement. These goals should be at the core of everything that the company does, embedding them into the workforce and uniting every employee in targeting the same goals. This is how true engagement is achieved.
There is much more to employee engagement than just these three points. People are extremely complicated, and every organization is unique, which is why you have to tailor your approach to your specific business. Try different techniques and see what works, just keep in mind that happy, staff are engaged and engaged staff are productive, which is exactly what you need to grow your business.
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Victor Mitchell, Serial Entrepreneur On How To Retain Your Top Employees While Growing Your Business