How to Boost Employee Engagement: 5 Tips for Leaders
It can be difficult to pinpoint what motivates employees. Their paycheck, the need to provide for their families, desire for a challenge, pride in their work, career aspirations - there are lots of reasons why people show up to work.
Figuring out what motivates your workforce is the key to keeping them engaged. Managed correctly, those driving forces will push your team to better productivity, greater efficiencies, and improved morale. It’ll also help staff retention and build a company culture that attracts talent.
Why Does Employee Engagement Matter?
Only 32% of US workers report feeling engaged at work, according to a recent Gallup survey, and that’s a huge problem for their companies.
Gallup analysts found that businesses with high levels of employee engagement dramatically outperformed those with more demoralized workers. The top performers in terms of engagement experienced 81% less absenteeism, 43% less turnover, and a 23% increase in profitability.
5 Ways to Improve Employee Engagement
1. Offer challenging work
Employees who aren’t challenged and allowed to develop their skills quickly grow bored, and nothing is motivating about monotony. The antidote to boredom is to give your employees tasks that stretch their skill set and keep them learning.
Don’t make the mistake of turning challenging into overwhelming, however. Burden your employees with too much work, and you may push them into burnout, quiet quitting, or simply walking out the door.
2. Provide opportunities for growth
Employees who are given professional development opportunities are 15% more engaged at work as they feel more supported and empowered.
As an employer or manager, it’s your job to provide avenues for growth. Understand what your employees are good at, what they’d like to improve, and where they want to go, and use it to create a roadmap for them so they can stay engaged and achieve their career goals.
3. Be transparent
Transparency builds trust and engagement as your employees know that they’re not being excluded or kept in the dark. Transparent communication means ensuring that everybody has a voice in the decision-making process and always communicating any changes in processes or workplace expectations.
4. Offer job security
No one likes to job-hop or feel like they’re on the brink of redundancy. As a leader, it’s vital to help your employees feel secure. Keep the lines of communication open so they’re up to date with any changes at the operational level and in the market as a whole.
If a disruptor is on the horizon, let your workers know and ensure you have a plan of action to put them at ease. Whether it’s shifting focus or looking to capitalize on promising new trends, every challenge needs to be met with a (positive) reaction, and employees should be kept in the loop.
Stress is a productivity killer, and constant uncertainty creates a lot of stress. Managers have to be a confident and steady voice so teams know they can rely on them to get them through any crisis.
5. Recognize and reward
Almost half of all US workers have left a job because they felt unappreciated. It’s part of a manager’s role to reward their employees before it gets to that point. Get to know your top performers and show them they’re valued.
Knowing that you’ve made a difference at work gives employees a strong sense of accomplishment and lets them know their future is secure. While not every achievement requires a reward they can be used to great effect when it comes to motivating teams to work together or identifying potential leaders. Be sure that you recognize employees on an even basis, as frequently leaving people out can be humiliating and will ultimately serve to alienate employees.
Engaging Remote Workers
Motivating workers in the office is one thing, but what happens when they’re spread across the country? Distributed teams are becoming increasingly common as more businesses switch to a remote work model.
While remote working offers more flexibility, it’s easier for demotivated employees to fall under the radar, with managers not spotting their disengagement until it’s too late.
An Employee Productivity Monitoring (EPM) solution can help. Leading EPM platform Prodoscore monitors each employee’s productivity, unobtrusively gathering data in the background without disrupting workflows. The innovative software provides insight into how your employees are working by tracking how they interact with your company’s cloud-based business applications.
Prodoscore data and actionable insights can inform opportunities for improvement, growth, and deeper engagement. The solution gives leadership peace of mind that employees are engaged and mitigates the urge to constantly check-in.
