When you run your own business, you spend a lot of time keeping an eye on the bottom line. Watching the cash flow, staying in the black, and turning a profit can become all you think about.
But what your employees?
Do you know how they feel about coming to work each day? Are you confident they are engaged as they can be with your business?
With only 32% of U.S. employees saying they’re engaged at work, there’s a strong chance that your business might also have an employee engagement problem.
So how do you increase employee engagement in the workplace?
Here are 12 brilliant employee engagement ideas to implement in the workplace.
1. Find Out What Your Employees Are Thinking
So how do you know how engaged your employees are? Well, there’s only one way to find out — ask them.
Conducting staff surveys are a great way to assess the level of employee engagement in your business. Ask your staff how they feel about working in your business. Also, consider asking them whether they feel valued and adequately rewarded for the work they do.
2. Show Them You’re Listening
There is nothing worse than being asked a question, and then not have your answer listened to. It’s also really bad for employee engagement as it will make the survey feel like a hollow gesture.
So, once you have conducted your employee engagement survey, you need to show that their feedback will contribute to change.
One of the first things you can do is compile the data from the feedback survey and share it. You might consider using your company’s intranet site to do this.
This will show you have nothing to hide and start the conversation with your employees.
3. Ask Your Employees How to Drive Employee Engagement
Now you can start asking your employees what they think which could help increase their engagement.
Giving voice to their opinions will help them feel that you’re listening to their concerns. They might also have some great ideas how you can improve things like workplace culture.
4. Hold Regular Staff Meetings
Holding regular meetings with your staff gives them the opportunity to talk to you and ask you questions. It will also give your team the chance to meet up regularly.
Employees who feel part of a team and have good working relationships with their colleagues will feel more engaged with work generally. So giving them an opportunity to meet up once a week will be great for your business.
5. Be Flexible
Your team is made up of individuals. People have differing strengths, weaknesses, and also live very different lives from each other.
When you’re thinking about employee engagement strategies, it’s important to remember that everyone is different and has differing approaches to work.
If you take the time to listen to the different needs of your staff and help them create individual working arrangements, it will help their employee engagement.
6. Embrace Diversity
Making your workplace an inclusive and welcoming place to be, is crucial to employee engagement.
If just one of your employees does not feel valued because of who they are, or feels isolated or excluded from the majority of their colleagues, it’s a problem.
Educate yourself on diversity and demonstrate your company’s commitment to inclusivity.
7. Put Your Employees First
Creating an employee-centric culture is very important to employee engagement. Sometimes when you work for an organization, no matter how large or small it is, it can feel like you are constantly being talked down to.
As a busy business owner, it can also be easy to slide into the habit of just issuing statements and memos. But if you want your staff to invest in your business and give their enthusiasm and passion, you have to show them that they are your priority.
Involve your staff in business decisions whenever possible. Show them that they are as important as the profits and take the time to talk to them individually.
8. Share Good Practice
There will inevitably be members of staff and teams that perform better than others in your business. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can give you the opportunity to encourage them to share best practice.
If you are particularly pleased with a piece of work, get the individual or team responsible to share their best practice. This will help promote excellent working methods. But also for the other teams, it will feel like the information is coming sideways from colleagues, rather than down from on high.
9. Invest in Your Staff
As a business owner, you invest in lots of things: property, equipment, shares, stock and financial programs. But what about your staff?
Your team is the most valuable resource you have and investing in them should not just be reward-based. Spending time and money on staff training, educational courses and other training opportunities such as attending conferences will benefit your employees and your business.
Investing in your staff will improve their performance and their productivity and will also increase their employee engagement. Consider using tools such as the training interfaces offered by this great company to help you create staff investment strategies.
10. Offer Rewards
One of the more enjoyable ways that you can help boost staff morale and employee engagement is to reward your staff.
Giving praise is a fun thing to do, but make sure you let your employees know why you’re praising them. Show them you understood and acknowledged the great thing that they’ve done, so it isn’t just an empty gesture.
You can also introduce performance-related bonuses to help incentivize productivity. Or even Employee of the Month awards — which don’t have to cost anything but can be great for staff engagement.
11. Make Work Fun
Coming to work doesn’t have to be a chore. There are ways, as a business owner, that you can give your staff something to look forward to and make work fun.
Consider lunchtime activities like offering massages or installing a ping-pong table. You can organize work trips and picnics, where staff can get together and chill out for a bit.
Show that your business has a sense of humor and that you’re prepared to let your hair down every now then.
12. Say Thank You
Without your employees you don’t have a business, so never forget to say thank you. It’s basic manners, but everyone needs to hear it.
Yes, they get paid, but feeling valued and engaged as an employee is not only about money.
Get Your Staff Engaged Today
So there are some tips on how to drive employee engagement in your business. An engaged workforce will be happier and more productive and will be more likely to go the extra mile for you and your business.
For more news, hacks, and tips on business strategies check out more of our blog posts today.
