Tips on Employee Engagement
“Employee engagement” is management speak for an invested, satisfied and happy workforce. The idea is simple: happy employees are more motivated to invest themselves into their work and produce higher quality results, while satisfied employees tend to stay with an organization longer. Higher quality results and lower turnover? Everybody can get on board with that. The execution is where we start to lose people. Finding the time and resources for employee engagement can seem like a real task from a top-down view. It’s budget, work hours and resources to devote to something that doesn’t directly lead to profits. It can be a tough sell. But the research is clear: the positive results of employee engagement range far and wide and even include less workplace injuries.
So… What Does Employee Engagement Look Like?
A company picnic, scooters, food trucks and a nap-room aren’t requirements to keep employees engaged. Your strategy for employee engagement needs to be customized for your team. While several unique factors need to be considered: industry, range of roles, size of team and the preferences of that team. Here are a few ideas (some that require no budget at all) to help you freshen up your employee engagement strategy:
Make a Great First Impression
The onboarding process is a vital first step in engagement; and a little bit of effort goes a long way. It can be as simple as a note from the team or some company branded swag- or it could be a tradition of the department going out to lunch together to welcome a new team member. Thanking your employees for investing their time and skills in your business and making people feel welcome on day one is an easy way to start off on the right foot.
Use Real Job Descriptions
Take the time to write thoughtful, accurate and down-to-earth job descriptions. Avoid using buzzwords or catch-all’s: let people know a realistic range of responsibilities for the position. Doubling down on that: Instead of telling employees what metrics they’ll be evaluated on during a performance review, put it in the job description so they know what success in that role looks like, from day one. People want to develop skills, exceed expectations and grow into a role. If you don’t explain to them how to do that, it becomes drastically harder to do.
Better Performance Reviews
Take performance reviews seriously and make them beneficial for both the employer and the employee. Checking boxes, scoring 1-5 and giving an impersonal feedback cannot only be useless; but it can be as harmful as a 1 star Yelp review. If there has been good work done, talk about it! And be specific. If there are corrections that need to be made, talk about it! And beyond being specific, focus on how corrections can be made, the expected timeline, and the results of those corrections.
Fair Wages for Fair Work
Alongside increased attention to performance reviews, make sure compensation is weighted by the responsibilities of the role and measures up to market rate. If your starting wage for a position is that same as it was 5 years ago. Time to evaluate that. During a review, even if a raise is not warranted by an employee’s performance, a cost of living adjustment certainly is. Note: a cost of living adjustment and a raise are two very different things. Shortchanging employees a small cost of living increase saves you a little in the short-term but will absolutely cost you in the long-term. When wages become stagnant, employees see growth in their role as less realistic and eyes start to look elsewhere.
Acknowledge Mental Health & Burnout
When you hire an employee, you’re not only paying for their time but you’re becoming a large part of their life and overall wellbeing. If that sounds a little overly personal, that’s because… it is. We’ve all been there, when things at work aren’t going well at work: it gets in your head. Sometimes ‘leave it at the door’ just isn’t an option, try as you might. Being invested in your work, to a point where it stars to affect your health negatively isn’t anything new. What’s got to be “new” is our willingness to do something about it. Having an HR department that is comfortable talking confidentially about mental health and work burnout is vital. Making sure the topics are covered by policies in employee handbooks is also very important. If you’re at a total loss on where to start, put together an anonymous survey to gather data and find out what the biggest outstanding issues are.
Lead Rather Than Manage
The words, “I have this great manager!” are as rare as, “Cool Prius!” It happens… but it’s the exception to the rule. In fact, I would say much of the time when I hear the word “manager” used by an employee, it’s in a negative context. And that’s because managing people and leading people are very different things. A manager is part of an organization and a leader is a part of a team. Being part of a team means communicating with that team. Knowing that team. Being willing to trust your employees as much as you expect them to trust you. And as they say, trust is earned, not given. So, earn it. Get to know your team, invest in them, and start leading them to reach collective goals.
Shameless Plug: A fantastic way to develop your own leadership skills or start investing in your employees is to find local trainings or leadership seminars. If you’re local to the Springfield-Eugene area, check out The Springfield Leadership Workshop, a three day workshop developed by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce in order to create more proactive, engaged leaders in our community.
Hopefully one or more of the above ideas got you thinking about employee engagement at your workplace. I’ll leave you with this anecdote, which for many years has embodied this notion perfectly.
During a visit to the NASA space center in 1962, President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?”
“Well, Mr. President,” he responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
