Do your office workers report to work early and eager to face the day? If your answer is yes, then this is a sign of high employee engagement. This HR metric is important to track as high employee engagement levels can improve your bottom line.
For instance, Caterpillar saved $8.8 million in one year from decreased attrition, absenteeism and overtime. Keep reading for 5 great employee engagement ideas you can use to improve your employee satisfaction levels.
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What Is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is the level of commitment and connection an employee has to their employer. Engaged employees work actively to advance their company’s goals. Some behaviors that show engagement include:
- optimism
- team orientation
- solution orientation
- selflessness
- a desire to learn
- willingness to take on blame but share credit
A company with a high level of employee engagement is likely to have higher productivity and profitability. Employee retention levels and customer satisfaction levels would also be higher. This is because engaged employees are happier and loyal to their company.
Below are 5 tips you can use to increase employee engagement levels at your office.
1. Support Your Managers and Supervisors
Employee engagement is greatly affected by the relationship employees have with their supervisors. Most employees leave a job not because they hate the company but due to their manager’s behavior and treatment. A great manager can make a difficult job bearable. But a disengaged one can make life unbearable for your employees.
Engage your management team by giving them the authority to lead their team. It’s also important to pay them a competitive salary. They must also have the tools and support they need to lead and motivate their team. Finally, create a training and development program to keep their leadership skills updated.
2. Create a Conducive Work Environment
You can also increase employee engagement by creating a great office environment for your employees. Ensure that they have all the tools they need to do their job. Cluttered offices, faulty IT equipment, lack of desk space and noisy colleagues can all contribute to disengagement levels.
You should also use strategic HR practices to create the best work environment for your office team. These strategies include things like:
- job enrichment
- recruitment and selection
- training and development
- performance management
- benefits and compensation
For instance, consider the recruitment and selection phase. You should identify candidates that fit your company culture and are enthusiastic about the job. You should also provide a competitive compensation and benefits package for your team.
3. Measure Employee Engagement Levels
Another important tip to improve employee engagement at your office is to measure your engagement levels. You can do so by conducting an annual employee engagement survey. Use best practices when crafting your survey or hire an experienced consultant to conduct it for you.
It’s better to group results according to departments so you can see the engagement of each team. Get buy-in from managers and supervisors. They’re the ones that will make the changes designed to improve engagement levels.
You may have been working at improving engagement levels yet they keep decreasing. You’ll need to find out where the issues are. Each company has its own culture so strategies that worked for a different company may not work for your employees.
Study your team to find out what strategies would work for them.
4. Perfect Your Communication
Great communication is key when trying to improve employee engagement. Many employees disengage from their employers when they feel unseen and unheard. With so many ways to connect you should be able to limit communication barriers with employees.
Improve communication in your office by having regular town hall meetings for your entire office. Encourage your employees to bring up any challenges they are facing. They can also make suggestions on how to improve your work environment and processes. By choosing office catering for the meetings you can be sure that employees will be looking forward to the meetings.
Managers and supervisors must also have weekly or bi-weekly meetings with their direct reports. They can be quick 10-minute catchups to get a temperature on how the employee is getting on. The manager can also give feedback on any work or projects the employee has turned in.
Remember that you don’t have to wait for scheduled meetings to communicate with your employees. Create many different systems for your employees to talk to you. For instance, encourage all your managers to have an open-door policy. You must also have a confidential HR form that employees can use to submit suggestions or report any issues they are facing.
Some more tools you could use include performance reviews, internal newsletters, employee surveys and informal social events. You could also have coaching and mentorship programs and career mapping discussions. To build trust with your team, act quickly on all suggestions and concerns they raise.
5. Recognize and Reward Your Team
Your team works hard for your company’s success and it’s important to recognize their efforts. Disengaged employees often feel like a replaceable cog in a machine. They don’t see the point in going above and beyond their job requirements if such efforts are not recognized.
Make recognition part of your corporate culture. Do this by empowering all your employees to give kudos. Team members can thank a colleague for their help by making an appreciation post on your social media page or office noticeboard.
Encourage your managers and supervisors to give positive feedback whenever an employee does something outstanding. You can also have the employee of the month awards. Employees can also get a bonus if the company has a great financial year.
Additionally, employees that do well on their performance reviews should get pay rises or some sort of recognition.
Start Boosting Employee Engagement in the Office
The employee engagement levels in an office team should be a major concern for any manager or CEO. This is because high engagement levels can save a company a lot of money in attrition and productivity costs.
If you have a disengaged office team then our 5 tips could be the key to improve your engagement levels. For more employee management and other business tips read the rest of our blog.