How to Engage Employees

How to Engage Employees

There are many strategies you can implement to help drive your team to success.

1. Get to know them. Sounds simple, and it is! Spending time with your employees and getting to know them is an easy and effective way to engage employees. Learning about their families, backgrounds and personal goals enables you as a manager to develop a stronger rapport with them. Find time in the day to say hello, ask them how their families are doing or inquire about their hobbies. This is a quick and straightforward practice that can make your employee feel like their presence is known and that you care about them as an individual. Research shows that employees who feel valued tend to be much more engaged in their work and performance.
2. Provide them with the tools for success. As a manager, you not only have to oversee different facets of business, but you should be sure your employees understand what they are doing. Training within their specific job descriptions can offer them more confidence in what they’re doing. When one of your team members is unsure of what to do, or how to handle a situation, productivity can come to a grinding halt while they try to troubleshoot the situation. If it becomes too overwhelming, there is a possibility of a small hitch becoming a much larger problem. Even if additional coaching or training is needed, providing your employees with a strong foundation for the tasks ahead is a good step towards raising their level of engagement.
3. Let them know how the company is doing. They are the backbone of the enterprise, and many times its success or failure will depend on them. For them to have a vested interest in the whether the business does well, they should be made aware of its successes, concerns, and struggles. Provide employees with a briefing of not only the company’s fruitful ventures but also the ones that didn’t work out so well. Allowing your team to know what works and what doesn’t grants them the opportunity to develop new ideas for the weaker areas, and continue to be proactive in the sectors that are working.
4. Allow them to grow. You sat down with them for an interview and saw potential in their abilities to help your business grow. The team you’ve assembled was chosen for a reason. Now, as their manager, you need to give them the opportunity to show off their skills and ability to do their assigned task. Give them the room to branch out to do their jobs the best way they know how. Hovering and micromanaging is only going to result in added stress, and that’s a condition that no one can work well under. If an employee comes to you with a pitch or an idea that may not be what you are looking for, choose to respond in a way that won’t discourage them from continuing to try and develop other concepts. Offering encouragement and appreciation for their work is important, even more so when you may reject their first pitch.
5. Support them and the authority you’ve granted. Many companies have various levels of management, all of which requires everyone to answer to someone. One of the important employee engagement practices to remember is supporting employees when faced with a tough situation. Regardless of your business type, employees will face adversity from your customers, as well as other employees. As a manager, you may be required to step in to rectify a situation, and sometimes it may mean choosing a side. A task that isn’t always easy, but supporting your employee and enforcing any authority they’ve laid out is important to the hierarchy of leadership within the company. As well as to their ability to feel supported in the work they are trying to accomplish.
6. Recognize your team and their hard work. A manager recognizing and acknowledging a job well done is an essential motivator when developing employee engagement best practices. To be a successful manager, it’s good to understand what form of recognition works best for your staff. Words of encouragement can go a long way in this regard. A ‘good job’ or ‘thank you’ in regards to a task may be just what that employee needed to push forward, or to continue do just as well on the next project. Taking it a step further, consider holding an employee recognition day, or, if the company can, try offering a monetary bonus to those who truly go above and beyond. Recognition helps to foster positive attitudes and healthy behavior in the workplace which is a key factor to elevating the levels of employee engagement.
7. Encourage teamwork among employees. There is a reason that people flock to team sports. When a group of people pulls together to win the big game, it often comes an infectious feeling that engulfs everyone around them—from teammates to the fans—the sense of camaraderie and success spreads to the masses. The same can be said for the workplace environment. When a large account or significant client needs your services, developing a strong team of employees gives them a sense of greater purpose. Pulling them together to work towards a big company goal can be incredibly satisfying, and allows them to bounce ideas off each other to ultimately meet the needs of your client. It adds a sense of cooperation, consideration, and confidence in not only each other but in the company, itself.
8. Find employees that care about the customer. Research shows that engaged employees are likely to provide exceptional customer service. In today’s world where nearly everything is digital or online, customer service can end up being a secondary concern. However, if you look at the most successful companies, their employees maintain an excellent rate of high service to their customers. Occasionally surveying your client base and to find out what areas need improvement is a good way to keep your motivating your staff to improve their communication skills. If your employees care about the concerns of the customers, they are more willing to go above and beyond to help solve customer issues.
9. Listen to and act on employee feedback. Listening to what your customers have to say is important, but so is listening to your employees. Having regular meetings to determine what areas of your workplace environment need improvement is an important part of keeping the employees engaged with the company. By using a company survey, or even a monthly meeting, giving your staff a voice is vital in making them feel like part of the company. If there is a situation within the internal workings of the company that goes unnoticed or unaddressed by management, it sends an unfavorable message to your staff. If they know that management cares, and hears their concerns, they will continue to maintain a high level of engagement instead of becoming despondent and disengaged.
10. Create a workplace environment free of fear. So many business and companies tend to operate in a performance-based environment. This sort of atmosphere is a favorable environment for fear and uncertainty to grow in, so keeping employee engagement steady is especially important. Allowing your employees to make choices without having to run everything up to the chain of command, allows them great moments within their career. Coincidentally, these performance-based environments can also lead to the fear of getting reprimanded if their decision falls flat. Managing a business where employees are punished for mistakes or a wrong choice is a sure-fire strategy for staff to become disengaged and unwilling to take the risks sometimes necessary for success. This is another opportunity to choose a kinder, more positive approach with your staff that can still be effective, without diminishing their levels of engagement.
11. Motivate, inspire and coach your employees. Not only should your employees understand the scope of their work, but as their manager, so should you. Creating a positive workplace environment starts with happy employees, but doesn’t end there. The tone is set by the managerial staff from the beginning, and a good way to achieve a positive tone is to be more than their boss; be the best coach they could have. If you see an employee struggling with a task, approach them to see if you can help in any way. Whether it is a pat on the back and words of encouragement urging them to keep trying or offering guidance on policy and procedure, they will see your willingness to help as a concern for their state of mind, as well as the company’s success. Many individuals throughout history who’ve been praised for outstanding accomplishments have had a good coach or mentor standing behind them. Be that coach for your employees.
12. Let them show you how well they can lead. At some point, everyone takes off their training wheels and just goes for it. As a manager, there will be times when you are going to have to let your team take the lead and drive home the presentation on their own. For your employees to feel passionate about their work and strive for only the best outcomes, they need to know that the company has faith in them. A good way to show them that is by allowing them to display their leadership and skills without any interference from managers or owners in the company. If they don’t feel confidence, help guide and encourage them until they do. Even if the result isn’t what was desired, show them their effort, and hard work didn’t go unnoticed while providing constructive critique to help them grow.
13. Encourage their personal development. Many times, the people who work for any given business only do so out of the necessity of a paycheck. Companies who retain employees with specific skill sets aren’t likely to face this issue. However, it still could ring true to some individuals on the staff. As you get to know your employees, you may learn about their personal hobbies and interests, even as far as learning what it is they eventually want to do with their lives. Think about the company and the different areas it may specialize in. Is there a better place for this employee to apply these additional skills? Does one of the secretaries have a love of graphic design? Maybe a warehouse worker desires to do more by upgrading his education to better serve the company as a distribution manager. Helping these employees reach a place within the company not only helps to encourage their development but allows you to retain them on staff in a capacity in which they could elevate their levels of engagement