Build Better Employee Engagements To Retain Vital Talent For Growth

Employee engagement has been moving up the corporate agenda list and today, it’s more vital than ever for the survival of organizations and keeping valuable talent in the organization. Because employees are responsible for building your reputation, growing your business and developing customer relationships, having a team that is dedicated and enthusiastic towards their job is a blessing.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement refers to a human resource concept that tells us the level of dedication and enthusiasm that a worker has towards their job. Organizations that have managed to engage their employees have a team that cares about their work, company performance and feels that their efforts are making a difference towards the achievement of the organization’s objectives.

Employees are your most important assets, your brand ambassadors and are the backbone of your business. Organizations need to keep employees both engaged and satisfied. Such employees will go the extra mile beyond the scope of their job description and are committed to your organization’s success.

Furthermore, these employees are less likely to leave, even if they’re having better offers from other companies.

Why is employee engagement so important today?

The COVID-19 Pandemic forced many companies to reassess their priorities and revealed the importance of mental health as organizations. Many organizations are now focused on increasing their employee engagement.

At the peak of the pandemic, like in July 2021, there were more than a million vacancies in the UK, which is a record high. During the same time, Germany reported that more than 60% of the country’s companies lacked competent workers.

In Belgium, labor shortages reached a 15-year high, with 83% of employers saying that they’re having difficulties filling vacancies. The reasons for all these statistics may be manifold, but lack of employee engagement is recognized as a number one contributor.

A report by Gallup revealed that it would take more than a 20% pay rise to poach employees from a manager who has engaged them satisfactorily, and almost nothing lure employees who are disengaged.

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2021 Report revealed that poor employee engagement not only results in employee turnover but also a loss of productivity equivalent to 18% of their annual salary. Globally, the report also noted that the level of employee engagement is around 20% which is a real concern for most organizations.

So, how do you improve employee engagement?

5 Ways to improve employee engagement for better outcomes

Employee engagement is more than just a good salary, fair treatment or great working conditions. It stretches to include being able to nurture your employees to believe in your company’s environmental, social and governance strategies, as well as respect its leadership and trust the business version.

The following five simple actions would help you take your employee engagement to a whole new level.

Build a culture of trust and care to boost employee engagement

Employees are people just like you, who need to feel cared about and cared for. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved that the boundary between where we live and work has tremendously faded away.

Employees need to be assured and feel that they have someone at work who they can run to for help whenever they need it. This can be for mental health support or time off to help their school-going children during a lockdown.

At the very least, employees should feel human first and foremost. They should be allowed to be themselves and freely express themselves whenever they need to. This can be made into a company culture where employees can feel free to raise their hands and ask for help whenever this is needed.

Allowing employees to freely express themselves and be themselves is important to reduce the chances of burnout. By implementing policies and having resources ready to help employees with mental. Issues employees feel more confident and engaged.

Develop engaging strategies on onboarding for new employees

In the old days, new employees would get to know their colleagues in the office during coffee breaks or when adjacent to each other, or while visiting the water cooler.

This approach no longer works, and organizations need to ensure that newcomers feel a sense of family when they report to work. This new shift is necessary whether employees are meeting face to face or over digital platforms.

Organizations need to invest in peer support for newcomers and build a platform where new employees are free to say when they are okay and when they are not.

Develop a culture of open, engaging and fun communications, but avoid messaging overload

Well, communication often leads to friction within any organization and can prove costly when it happens among employees.

The business must ensure that company strategy, performance and expectations are communicated clearly and openly to employees. At the same time, it is beneficial to encourage personal expression and spare some channels for fun.

However, caution must be observed to minimize overloading employees with irrelevant messages that can quickly escalate to an unwelcome distraction. Create some channels where employees can freely exchange fun moments, jokes, memes and so much more to help the team feel free and gel together.

Measure employee engagement and act on the results

You cannot succeed at implementing employee engagements if you’re not measuring the results of your efforts. To truly understand how your employees feel throughout the organization, you need to run regular engagement surveys.

This is a common practice throughout forward-thinking organizations. Employee surveys tell you the true picture of how your employees are feeling and their commitment towards the business objectives. In fact, it is even better to publicly display the results of the engagement surveys to help build confidence among your employees.

The ultimate goal of the employee engagement survey is to pick the feedback and use it in making the organization more employee-friendly and implement changes that make your employees feel valued, engaged and respected.

Do more together, work-related or not.

There is always more to life than just work, and it is very easy to be swept in by the day-to-day activities of work life. As an organization, you need to help your employees feel more connected to each other in their community.

One way of doing this is to organize for volunteering days as a company. Volunteering activities are not only good for the environment and community, but it also helps your employees feel good and build team spirit.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has pushed organizations to recognize and focus more on the mental health of employees. As employee engagement and well-being take center stage, organizations are poised to have happier and more productive employees that stay for longer.