You absolutely can improve employee engagement, but it’s important to use well-thought-out techniques, that will accurately address how to improve employee engagement. Here are 5 of our favorites.
Worried that your employees are feeling burnt out, uninspired, or detached from their work? Knowing some tried-and-true ways to improve employee engagement will allow you to act before the situation worsens. It’s important to note that before trying employee engagement techniques, you’ll want to measure the current mindset of your employees. By understanding how happy, satisfied, or motivated your employees are now, you can better assess the results of these five ways to improve employee engagement.
#1: Set the Tone From the Top
You can only expect an improvement in employee engagement by modeling that same engagement in your management. If employees observe or report to managers or C-suite executives who seem apathetic, tuned out, or detached from their work, you will face an uphill battle. Start from the top and work your way down, making sure your company's leads are modeling sincere engagement with their work, direct reports, peers, and even those they do not interact with regularly.
#2: Allow for Autonomy
Although it can be daunting, there can be significant benefits from empowering employees to make their own decisions. For example:
- For some companies, this may be realized by giving employees some flexible time to work on projects for the company that are outside of their traditional job role.
- For other companies, this may change the day-to-day management of trusted employees, allowing them more flexibility to go to their kid's soccer games or decide on a vacation schedule that is best for both them and their roles.
- Finally, some companies implement this by taking away some direct oversight of projects and tasks, encouraging employees to take a decisive role in decision-making.
#3: Give Recognition
This tactic may sound almost too simple to be effective, but we’ve seen it increase employee engagement countless times. Employees want to feel valued and want to know they’re appreciated. Even if some team members are paid on commission or earn quarterly bonuses, those payouts do not necessarily encourage an employee in the same way that recognition will.
When you call out an employee on their excellent work, make your comments specific, sincere, and timely. The employee will likely feel more engaged, their manager will be proud of their direct report, and peers will see the company cares enough to recognize contributions. Your praise will reinforce the behaviors you want to see from employees and increase confidence.
#4: Keep Employees in the Know
Feeling engaged at work is particularly hard if you also feel like an outsider. While it may feel efficient to share information strictly on a ‘need to know’ basis, you risk alienating employees who might otherwise thrive on being included. Certainly, there’s no need to open confidential information to every team member but look for ways that employees can be more included. As one of our favorite ways to increase employee engagement, sharing more with your team can help them feel more valued, included, and motivated to work towards shared goals.
Here is an example: if you have budget restrictions on how many new hires you can bring on during a quarter, consider explaining to employees how you prioritized adding to certain teams and how you plan to expand or address needs in other teams in the long term.
#5: Measure, Measure, Measure
While learning more about tips on how to improve employee engagement is a notable and positive step towards improving your company, an essential first step is measuring your employees’ current state of mind. Without that baseline measurement, how will you know if your actions are warranted and successful?
Reach out to us to schedule a demo and find out how thousands have trusted us to measure employee engagement and happiness.