It may start out as a minor nuisance….then you begin to notice arguments with managers, longer-than-normal lunch breaks, or more wasted time. And before you know it, those small problems begin to add up and impact your teams and products. These are signs of disengaged employees, and it is costing the business a lot of money both directly and indirectly.
Whether it shows as an increase in employee turnover, difficulty attracting new talents, loss of productivity or even increased in safety risks, Gallup has estimated the cost of a highly disengaged employee is 34% of their income.
Can you afford to waste this money? What would you do with it?
3 Sure Ways to Start to Improve Employee Engagement
1. Ask the team what they believe the most important areas to improve are and start working on those which focus on the heart of the business. Areas around communication, trust, having fun and relationships.
2. Focus on behaviors over values, these will still represent the important values but will give people specific ways of demonstrating them. Together decide on 4-5 behaviors which the team believe are the most important and find ways of demonstrating those behaviors every day. When you make sure the heart of the business is healthy the systems, KPIs and functions improve as a result.
3. Find ways to recognize individual team members regularly and for specific actions. Teach the team to acknowledge others and how to do it in a meaningful way. Letting your team members know they are valued and appreciated for the little things will have a greater impact than just rewarding and recognizing them when large goals have been met.
There are many more ways to increase employee engagement that you can implement in your business to see powerful results.
Passionate about creating a globally engaged workforce, Engage & Grow Founder and CEO Richard Maloney spoke with his 3 mates about what they could do to help stop the Employee Disengagement epidemic, they decided to get together for one day and record a Videobook in which they would share all their expertise and know-how.
The result? 10 Chapters featuring 4 Internationally acclaimed leadership and culture experts Marshall Goldsmith, Richard Maloney, Brad Sugars and Mark Thompson discussing, debating and sharing what works and how it works.
Creating a culture where all team members feel valued and connected is the key to increasing Employee Engagement, this takes time and commitment but the results are certainly worth the effort.
