Wasp Barcode Technologies: The Barcode Solution People
8 Ways to Accomplish Improved Employee Engagement
Organisations all across the board do their best to ensure employees are committed to the organisation’s goals and values, remaining motivated, contributing to the company’s success and maintaining an enhanced sense of their own well-being. These characteristics foster the ideals of employee engagement. However, The Global Perspectives survey ranked the United Kingdom 18th out of 20 countries in proper employee engagement.
In 2014, only
37 percent of UK workers felt they were encouraged to be innovative and only half of the employees surveyed said they felt valued at work. Improving employee engagement in the workforce does more than just promote business productivity. The
Harvard Business Review revealed organisations that are highly engaged have double the rate of success over lower engaged organizations. HBR states, “high turnover organizations report 25 percent lower turnover, and low turnover organizations report 65 percent lower turnover.”
[Tweet "In 2014, only 37 percent of UK workers felt they were encouraged to be innovative."]
Productivity and business success are not the only two benefits received from employee engagement. In addition, successful engagement improves quality of work and health. Safety incidents from higher scoring businesses are 48 percent less, and
patient safety incidents are 41 percent less.
The benefits are endless for organistions who employ efficient employee engagement. Luckily enough, Wasp has provided a list of eight ways to accomplish improved employee engagement.
1. Talk the talk, walk the walk
First and foremost, employee engagement comes straight from the source of the organisation: its leaders. In order for employees to engage, they must witness their leaders demonstrating the same characteristics and behaviors. Employees are 55 percent more engaged and 53 percent more focused at organisations where
leaders display desired behavior.
2. Host a work basketball tournament
Okay, maybe basketball isn’t exactly your organisation’s fascination, but the idea behind providing opportunities to break some barriers between leaders and their subordinates allows employees to feel more comfortable, which improves their performance. Sometimes having fun together can encourage creativity, collaboration and build relationships between leaders and subordinates.
3. Follow the Golden Rule
Put yourself in your employees’ shoes each and every day. When you work hard and put a lot of time and effort into something, it’s nice to feel appreciated. When you show genuine appreciation for your employees’ hard work, it encourages them to care more about their daily tasks. Rewards and appreciation don’t have to cost a dime. Simply saying “thank you” is often enough when it is frequent and sincere. In fact, some say that
saying “thank you” is more important that giving employees a raise.
4. Provide educational opportunities
There’s always time for employees to learn and grow within their organisation. Your employees today should have more knowledge and experience in the field than they did the day you hired them. By providing your employees with proper educational training, you automatically give them an opportunity to engage more with their work. Some educational training could be costly, but there are also organisations that will provide
free, live training when you use their software.
5. Involve your employees
You’re probably thinking, “My employees are already involved by completing their daily tasks.” However, it’s hard for employees to see the big picture when they are completing a small piece of the grand puzzle. When you involve them in brainstorming and executing plans, their motivation will increase.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School said, “If you want everyone to be on the same page, put the page in front of them conveniently and often.”
6. Show recognition through social media
It’s the 21
st century and
57 percent of small businesses in the U.K. currently use social media. It’s no secret that
social media provides benefits for businesses, but did you know utilizing social media for your employees’ is also beneficial? Dedicate an Instagram post every week to an employee who is working hard, post a photo on Facebook of an “employee of the week” or even send out a Twitter post thanking an employee for their dedication to your organisation.
7. Help employees find the “why” in their work
Work may become a monotonous task for some and reduce an employees’ willingness to fully engage each day. It’s easy for an employee to get caught up in all of the tasks, deadlines and next goal and forget why they are there in the first place. So remind them. Constantly communicate the organisaton’s goals and mission to the employees so the next time they’re working on an assignment they aren’t thinking about how long it’s going to take them to finish, they’re thinking about the “
why.”
Why they chose to work for your organization,
why their work matters to customers,
why what they are doing is helping the organization.
8. Appreciate setbacks
While this method might not seem like the most appealing at first, it’s essential to improving employee engagement. In all organisational progress, there is a dark side: having setbacks.
Common setbacks include inadequate research, financing flubs and outside distractions. Setbacks can either make or break your progress, and it can make or break the engagement of your employees. Setbacks are inevitable, but whatever you do, don’t punish your employees for it or view it as a failure. Instead, view it as a part of doing hard work.
The U.K. was ranked 18
th out of 20 countries in employee engagement, but that statistic can easily became a thing of the past. Employee engagement will promote business productivity, but most importantly, it will improve the culture of your organisation. Your employees are the wheels that keep your business going. Investing time into methods that will benefit them will benefit the entire success of your organisation.
How could implementing some of these suggests help engage your employees?
