What is employee engagement?
Employee engagement is an HR (human resources) concept that allows the improvement of the environment and culture of the workplace to involve and motivate employees in their work and workplace. It is a top priority for the HR department; why? Because engaged employees will put more effort into their work and bring more input to your organization. With the right approaches that we are going to discuss below, you can discover whether your employees enjoy their work and put in effort or they are just spending their time. You can also measure how effectively your team building and other organized practices affect your employees’ engagement in their work. Employee engagement in a company looks almost like this;
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Employees enjoy their work and are excited to work in your company
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Employees value their work and want to do their utmost to benefit the company
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Employees respect, consider, and value the goals and objectives of the company and want to help to achieve them
Why is employee engagement so important?
Your employees are your key to success. Having good professionals in your company is a big achievement, but that is not enough to ensure your company's success. Suppose you do not have a good strategic employee engagement plan to meet their needs and interests. In that case, they will not benefit your company because, sooner or later, they will be unmotivated and uninterested in the work you suggest. But this is how your engaged employees will benefit your company.
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Engaged employees will be more productive.
According to Gallup's research, companies with more engaged employees have higher earnings per share, and they managed to recover faster from recessions than companies with a lower engagement rate in the workforce.
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Engaged employees will lead to higher productivity and success.
The more motivated your employees are, the more they will bring you success. When they are disengaged, they will cost you more money than investing in your employees to engage them in their work, and from this, you can get profit, but from employee disengagement, you will only lose.
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Engaged employees will work longer for your company.
People are less likely to leave their current employer if they are engaged. Besides, while disengaged people will be glad to accept another job offer and go, engaged employees will stick around longer. And engagement is the best way to ensure that your hired professionals will not leave soon for another company.
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Engaged employees will be your company’s advocates.
If your employees are well aware of your brand and company and are also engaged in their workplace, they are more likely to suggest your brand to their friends and relatives. They will also be eager to share your company’s posts and publications on their social media accounts. This will increase your marketing reach and improve your visibility on social media platforms. Moreover, your employees can be the most trusted voice for your company’s services and goods.
What are the top 3 employee engagement drivers?
One of the most widely spread mistakes among people is considering employee engagement the same as employee happiness. Of course, they are very tightly interrelated, but there is a vivid distinction between them. Employees can be satisfied with their jobs and salaries but still be disengaged, leading them just to put their time into work and get the money. Hence, now let's understand how to set the top 5 drivers for employee engagement.
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Inform your employees of the objectives of your company.
For every employee, it is essential to know a company's core values and objectives. They are more eager and motivated to do more when they see that they are contributing to something more than their professional life. Moreover, you can move on more efficiently when your employees are aligned around a common objective.
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Offer opportunities for professional growth.
Employees want to accomplish tasks where they can input their strengths and knowledge and want to do challenging tasks to develop their professionalism. Creating an environment where every employee can develop their skills and learn new things related to their profession will allow them to flourish, which will, in turn, build employee engagement.
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Ensure effective communication between the management and employees.
Every employee needs good relationships with their colleagues and especially with the managers and leaders to inspire and encourage them in their working process. Giving insightful and honest feedback with positive remarks from a leader to your employees is another essential part of effective communication to ensure employee engagement. Employees need feedback to understand their drawbacks to start working on them and improve their skills and work techniques.
How do we build employee engagement in the workplace?
There are numerous techniques and strategies to improve employee engagement in a workplace, but we collected the 5 most valuable practices that are easy to implement and are very effective.
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Create a mission statement.
Create a mission statement that highlights the company's core values and objectives, allowing employees to align around a central purpose and work hard to be a part of achieving it.
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Recognize and reward good work.
It is important to notice good work and let them know you appreciate their efforts. Employees who get positive feedback and recognition from their leaders are likelier to put more effort and potential into their work. A certificate of appreciation can be an excellent way to show your gratitude for your employees. These recognitions and rewards also help to direct your employees in the right direction according to your mission statement and value system.
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Organize company outings.
One of the most essential things in a company is the good relationships between colleagues. Your company's employee engagement rate will increase if they are connected and trust each other. To have this, you can organize outings for your employees to create tighter connections and bond with each other outside the working environment. There are many low-cost options for outings, such as a game night or even a picnic in nature.
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Give your employees training and coaching for their career growth.
Career growth is a priority for the majority of employees nowadays. Hence, providing them the opportunity to develop their skills will improve their work and show the employees that you value them and believe in their potential. However, it is not always mandatory to hire professionals to do the training; your senior workers can coach your junior employees to help them develop new skills they can implement in their work to get the best results.
Another way to do that is by investing in employee training software development. With a wide range of learning modules available, your team members can acquire the skills they need to advance their careers and contribute even more to your organization's success.
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Conduct frequent workplace surveys.
Workplace surveys are tools organizations use to measure employee engagement and performance. Besides, these surveys allow your employees to feel valued and promote an atmosphere of inclusiveness as companies show that every employee's opinion is essential and appreciated. To get the maximal benefits from your surveys, you can use a survey maker plugin that allows anyone to create amazing online surveys with a number of useful features. Below, we will understand why it is crucial to conduct employee surveys frequently.
Why are workplace surveys important?
Workplace surveys are valuable tools for companies to understand the needs of employees and make reasonable changes that will address the needs and interests of their employees and consequently boost employee engagement in the company. Here are the major benefits and significance of these surveys.
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You will get happier employees because they know they are valued in their workplace, and the management team cares about their satisfaction.
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You can easily check whether your employees are aligned with your mission and share your company's values. Your mission statement is one of your company's most important determinants of success. You should ask your employees through these anonymous surveys whether they feel aligned with your surveys and understand them; if not, you will probably need to clarify the statement or explain it more precisely.
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Surveys will allow you to discover the main areas of your company that need improvements. This will show the areas that are important for your employees and affect their satisfaction. Hence, you can set priorities and work on them.
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Workplace surveys foster changes. As the surveys are anonymous, employees will feel free to express their thoughts and ideas on specific issues, giving honest feedback to the company. This will help to change any company culture that harms the employees' well-being and satisfaction.
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Employee engagement surveys help to build trust with the employees. When you react to your employees' feedback and do certain acts to meet their needs, you show a strong message to them that you are doing your utmost to create a positive environment and care about their success in their professional lives.
5 tips for workplace surveys
To maximize the benefits of workplace surveys, you can consider the following tips and get better results.
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Be flexible with the methods for taking the survey.
Employees’ abilities and preferences can be very different depending on many factors. Hence, we highly advise giving them options for taking the survey. Some people prefer to do it online at home, while others prefer to fill it with pen and paper in the workplace. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. However, it is important to mention that online surveys are way more cost-efficient. You can use WordPress voting plugin with a responsive design, several question types, survey style options, and so on to create your polls. Online surveys also make it easy to enter the information into databases. On the other hand, some argue that paper-based surveys get more responses. Hence, we highly recommend giving employees options to choose the most convenient form.
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Create a strategy to promote your survey.
The surveys aim to get maximal employee feedback; therefore, you should know the most effective time and means to promote your survey. It is more effective to send the survey when your employees check their emails, usually during working hours. Then, after notifying your employees about the survey, give them a deadline for submitting it. Because most employees typically do it during the first three days, you can set it to approximately that time. After having the surveys, give the survey results as soon as possible to show them that their opinions matter and actions are being taken to increase their engagement.
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Communicate the goals and details of the survey.
Give clear descriptions of what your survey is going to be about. Ensure to inform them about the goals and context of the quiz and how long it will take to complete it. This will let your employees manage their time and plan on doing it. Tell your employees about the data anonymity of the surveys so they can freely share their honest thoughts. If this idea is not clearly communicated, employees may not always answer honestly, and your efforts will be in vain. Also, you can ask a third party to administer the survey, so the employees will be even freer to express their honest thoughts.
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Avoid using many open-ended questions in your surveys.
Although open-ended questions are very good at giving details and other feedback from survey respondents, they are very tiresome and often discourage survey takers. This is because these questions usually take longer to answer, but you can use multiple choice or scale questions instead, keeping the questions concise and straightforward.
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Use the Grouping technique for the flow of questions.
Grouping questions means to group questions that are about the same topic. This method allows survey-takers to concentrate better on a topic and fill it more easily. Some people prefer randomized question grouping because they force the test taker to read every question more carefully. Still, the downsides of this method are that it can frustrate respondents, make them lose their interest, and give random answers just to get to the end of the survey.
Conclusion
Employee engagement is an essential concept of the human resources department that aims to boost the productivity of employees and the company, turn your employees into your company’s advocates, and make them stick with your company longer. To ensure employee engagement in your company, inform them about your company’s missions and values, offer them opportunities for career growth, and ensure effective communication between your managers and employees. Many methods allow us to build employee engagement within a company, such as recognizing good work or organizing outings. Still, one of the most efficient ones is frequent workplace surveys that allow us to understand the needs of employees and make improvements in the fields that need it.