What does employee engagement mean to you? It’s so much more than the knowledge of whether someone likes or dislikes the job. Employee engagement can reflect how committed an employee is to the business and its success. It shows their motivation and personal investment in the work. An engaged employee is better motivated to put in the required effort toward a company’s common goals while working on personal development. They are committed to the core values represented by the organization. They also have a clear understanding of the organizational objectives and the importance of their work.
Have Open Meetings
When communicating at work, people must know what is going on. With open meetings, everyone should understand and feel free to voice their opinions. There may come occasions where individuals need to be singled out for one reason or another, however, it must be done in a mindful and respectful manner. However, to keep the health and morality of employees and the overall opinion of the business intact, sometimes certain sensitive information should be kept private.
In these meetings, the focus should be on the overall growth and expansion of the business, not a witch hunt for problems or blame parties. Make your sessions a safe environment for everyone, and your business will be better for it.
Encourage Feedback
One of the best ways to allow a company to grow is to encourage feedback. When you allow others to give their input and voice their opinions, you get many ideas and options that you can then discuss and grow from the feedback. If you don’t encourage feedback, you could be missing the boat as it were and, as such, doing more harm than good.
Be Appreciative
Showing your appreciation to others will help strengthen and grow the lines of communication at the workplace. When people feel that their words are welcomed and even encouraged, it goes a long way and helps create a safe environment. On the other hand, if you reject all of your employees’ ideas and don’t show any appreciation for their hard work and dedication, it will quickly reflect their performance and overall mental health towards their job.
Celebrating the Little Victories
Too often, a team gets caught up in the bigger goal that you forget to celebrate the little wins and victories along the way. Working toward a big goal is a massive undertaking, and small celebrations in between help remind your team about how far they have come and the remarkable progress they have made working together. Celebrating the little victories keeps the employees motivated to keep going, and they will be fired up to work much harder to achieve the next milestone. Encourage your team to set their milestones and decide what the celebration should be to lift their spirits.
Commit to One Day of “Fun at Work”
The “Fun at Work Day” is one day each month, where the focus is geared toward fun instead of work. Instead of asking your team to give up their weekends to attend team-building retreats, make “Fun at Work Day” happen on a workday. Let it be a day filled with games, team-building activities, lunch, and tea-time get-together sessions. Some great ideas include allowing your employees to bring their pets to work, take longer lunch breaks, and watch a movie at the office as you bond over food and drinks. Don’t think of this as a day of work wasted because the boost of happiness that your employees are going to get out of this one day will more than make up for it. Their productivity levels will soar sky-high when they come into work the next day. It will give them something to work hard for and look forward to every month. I think you will enjoy this day yourself, and it is important (even for the leader) to just do nothing once in a while.
By creating a positive work culture, you promote employee engagement. When the employees are engaged in the work they perform, their productivity will improve. It also reduces employee turnover while increasing that motivation to improve their output.