Leo Tolstoy famously said that ‘All happy families are the same, all unhappy families are different in their own way’. The same concept could be applied to all great companies. They all have one thing in common – highly engaged employees. An engaged workforce is an organization’s greatest asset, because when people feel a strong sense of connection to their workplace, they become the kind of motivated, dedicated, and loyal employees that distinguishes the organization from their competition and propels them towards greatness.
How does that work? Engaged employees result in higher levels of productivity. profitability, and customer satisfaction. When an organization is able to keep its employees happy, these employees, in turn, are able to respond more creatively to the challenges and demands of their organization. So, here are ten strategies to ensure employee engagement in an organization.
Clarity of Business Goals
Clear articulation of organization goals gives an overall direction to the company. It is also the core of employee engagement as the clarity of expectations motivates the employees by
– Providing them a purpose
– Enabling them to understand the job role
– Providing an accountability of work done
– Enabling them to perform activities that will help them achieve their results
When the employees are motivated, they feel empowered to work towards the goals of the organization.
Alignment towards Goals
Once the organization goals are clearly articulated, it is also important to ensure that the goals of the company are aligned to those of the employees.
– Employee goals should be clearly understood right from day 1.
– Organizations should understand what drives the employee and help them achieve their goals while also aligning with the company goals
– Tangible goals should be set that both individuals and teams can work upon it. These goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely)
This motivates the employees as they feel that they are working not only towards the achievement of organization’s goals but also personal goals. And motivation is an important aspect of employee engagement.
Empowerment of Employees
Empowerment plays a crucial role in employee engagement. It helps create a flexible and creative work environment for the employees by making them feel connected and part of the companies’ success.
Empowerment creates a sense of accountability, authority and self-determination.
Companies should provide the openness and transparency of information that gives employees the ability to make the right decisions for themselves and the company. Thus empowered employees are more likely to actively contribute towards the success of the organization.
Inclusion
Creating an organization culture that makes all employees important by valuing and respecting them no matter what the differences are, can help an organization achieve its objectives.
When people are able to share ideas, interact and collaborate with others without being left behind, the level of creativity and teamwork is amplified. Employees who feel valued in their organizations are push themselves towards achieving better results for the company.
Human Interaction
Organizations are constantly adopting new technology for engaging employees to make their work easier and increase efficiencies. But on the other hand, one cannot use technology to replace human touch.So instead using technology that creates purposefulness and productivity while maintaining valuable interaction will make it more cohesive and effective. The enhanced human interaction will give way to increased engagement of employees.
Gamification
Gamification is something companies need to seriously look at to engage employees as well as teams. When designed right, gamification can help in the creation of a right environment to change the behavior of employees, develop skills and solve problems. It is also a fun and creative way to know the strengths of employees and promote collaboration among them.
Customizable gamification can be used to showcase employee actions through company- wide leaderboards and notifications. This will create a social buy-in and appreciation of these initiatives and will also ensure that the employee actions are translated to tangible awards.
Leaderboards
Leaderboards help in engaging employees by focusing on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors. They can be used: – To calculate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), customer satisfaction surveys, calls and chats undertaken by each
– To increase the employees’ desire to excel in their day to day activities
– To create a healthy competition provide instant feedback and corrective mechanism
that can be adopted within a short period
– To provide transparency and openness in the entire organization
Also, any team member who has missed certain activities can easily track them and join anytime.
Nurturing purposeful networks
Networking within an organization creates a sense of community and keeps the employees engaged. It fosters a sense of belonging, unity, cause, accomplishments and the ability to tackle large problems as a group by the employees. It plays an important role in employee engagement as it motivates the employees in the network to be a part of something meaningful and impactful.
Well-Being of Employees
Employee engagement is a big contributor to employee well-being. Gallup’s five essential elements of well-being include:
Purpose: The personal mission and purpose of every employee needs to be recognized and supported so that they can help the employees achieve want they want within the organization
Social: The presence of healthy relationships with peers, supervisors and subordinates provides support and encouragement at workplace
Financial: If employees are financially satisfied and able to manage their economic life, it helps to reduce stress and increase their security
Community: The work environment and work culture has an important role to play in the well-being of employees
Physical: When the employees have good health and enough energy to do things daily, they are more engaged
These aspects of employee well-being influence employee engagement and therefore, organizations need to understand the aspect and manner in which they relate to their employees.
Gen-Y and Gen-Z
In today’s organizations, the biggest concern is towards the engagement of Y generation employees. Millenials are different in their digital savviness, expectation of themselves and company, interest in gamification and a desire to create an impact beyond themselves and so the traditional engagement techniques may not apply to them. Studies say that only 28% of millennials feeling engaged at the workplace.
On the other hand, there is the Gen-Z who are most tech-intuitive, creative, cause driven and loyal. They are looking for ways to connect with the mission of the company and are willing to create innovative solutions for its benefit. They are social and have high expectations on making an impact on the company’s mission.
With such workforce with different perspectives and talents, it is important for companies to understand the needs of their workforce, be open and responsive to be able to tap into their potential if they want to continue staying on a growth trajectory.
Hence it is for organizations aiming to have an ambitious role in the highly competitive global economy to recognize the needs of the multigenerational workforce and practice strategies that would lead to employee engagement.
About the Author
Deepa is the founder of Zinda.xyz. She has also been involved in various technologies for over 25 years, ranging from legacy mainframes to public cloud.