Employee engagement is an issue that concerns many companies.
In today’s changing culture, employee engagement is no longer a matter of increasing salaries and adding a few perks, like a free coffee machine or a wellness room. Employee engagement starts deep within a company’s culture and must become part of its core values.
Here’s how you can build a strong culture of engagement at your company.
3 top employee engagement factors
It’s easy to make the mistake of interpreting employee engagement as being the same as having ‘happy’ employees. While engaged employees do tend to be happier and have higher levels of job satisfaction, happiness levels will always vary and can be fleeting. Engagement is formed on much deeper foundations.
Among the factors that build employee engagement, here are a few key drivers that’ll help you boost yours:
- Give employees a strong purpose at work
- Offer tangible development opportunities
- Train caring managers to be caring and focus on employees’ strengths
- Ensure open communication throughout the business
These drivers connect directly with the three different areas of employee engagement: cognitive, emotional and physical.
Employees are looking for meaningfulness and purpose in their work, the safe environment created by good relationships and a work-life balance that enables them to use their strengths and thrive.
So what are the practical ways that your company can develop these?
Build a strong company culture
Company culture is defined by a business’ core values, mission, vision and strategies. To make these meaningful to your team, employees need to understand what they are and be able to buy into them. They should be clearly explained to potential candidates from day one and consistently promoted within the workplace. This forms the beginning of a sense of belonging and purpose, as well as an emotional connection. However, it is often said that an employee joins a company but leaves a manager. If you want to increase employee engagement, you have to choose managers carefully and train and equip them to develop their teams.
Provide opportunities for career development
Career development has become increasingly important for employees in recent years - particularly for the Gen Z and Millennial generations. They’re not just concerned with the money they’ll earn in a job, but are keen to know there’s a career path and opportunities to grow.
Knowing that a company is willing to invest in your personal growth (whether through in-house training opportunities or sponsored further education)is highly motivational and will make your employees feel they’re a valued member of the team. Managers play an important role here too! They’re the ones having on-going conversations with team members and can best guide and encourage growth.
Involve employees in decision-making
Employees who feel they’re an integral and valued part of your team are more likely to invest themselves. Company transparency plays a key role in ensuring employees feel needed and valued.
Transparency is not just about communicating decisions and strategy from management. There needs to be a two-way conversation where employees are encouraged to share their opinions and can see management listens to and acts on their input.
Employees who feel that their opinions are sought and valued feel more a part of the company as a whole and, therefore, more invested and engaged.
3 smart activities for employee engagement
We’ve covered some essential drivers that need to make up a company’s employee engagement strategy, but how you implement these practically? What specific techniques can you use to raise employee engagement? Here are some activities and initiatives that will boost employee engagement at your company.
Having a defined company training programme is a clear sign that a company is invested in its workforce and shows potential employees that there are opportunities for career development.
Larger companies may find it more cost-effective to organise this in-house, either as part of your HR Department or even through a separate training department. If your company is smaller, outsourcing training can provide specific expertise you might be missing in-house and will lighten your workload. Either way, these can be a mix of in-person and online and there are a wide range of platforms on offer that can be customised or tapped into.
The range of training courses you offer should vary depending on the industry and roles within your company. There are some workshops all employees will benefit from and every company should offer, such as:
- Onboarding
- Compliance
- Teamwork training
- Management training
Sporting events promote team building, health and fitness and can be a great way to encourage cohesion and a sense of belonging amongst your workforce. Plus,you offer a change of scenery and an opportunity to have some fun together. All-in-all, a great way to foster your corporate identity and build engagement.
Just be sure whatever sport you choose is inclusive for everyone in your team. Do you have to account for disabilities or different cultures that aren’t familiar with local sports? Unless you’re managing a sports team - you’ll have to consider different levels of physical fitness too.
Opt for activities that everyone can enjoy and get stuck into. Running a sport event where team members are stuck on the sidelines is more likely to hurt employee engagement rather than boost it!
If you work for a larger company, you may have the budget to offer a variety of sporting activities that cater to a range of abilities. This is a great solution to ensure everyone has the chance to get involved.
Employee games and competitions
Games and competitions are another great way of motivating your staff and encouraging social cohesion. They can also be opportunities to get away from the office and spend some quality time together or they can be integrated into the work day.
Managers could take their team to a local escape room or bowling alley one evening. The whole office could go on a treasure hunt. Or you could organise a team building day at a local outdoor centre. In-house competitions might include finding a slogan for a new ad campaign or a sweepstake during the big events, like the world cup.
Top employee engagement initiatives
It can be difficult to identify which initiatives will be the right ones for your workforce. Focusing on your core values and building a foundation based on listening to your employees are good places to start. In line with this, here are three of our top ideas that are directly linked to emotional, cognitive and physical engagement to help you get the ball rolling.
Build better work-life balance
We all spend a lot of time at work, but none of us want to feel that it’s all we do. Your employees will be more productive and invested at work if they’re able to get away from it and do other things. Employees who have a good work-life balance tend to be more successful and engaged at work, so anything a company can do to promote this is likely to be beneficial. Initiatives that boost work-life balance include things like:
- Flexible working
- Fun social activities with colleagues
- Support during unexpected life events
Making sure your company has a clear policy on work-life balance that demonstrates concern and understanding will help them feel valued and emotionally connected.
Recognise employees’ achievements
Recognition of employees’ achievements is an important element in building a strong company culture that your team can engage with. Emphasise how important this is to your managers and help them with strategies for implementing it.
Additionally, put in place systems and programmes for rewarding employees’ efforts. Team-based incentive programmes are a great way to encourage and reward teamwork. Don’t forget to communicate recognition to the rest of the company to motivate and inspire them – employees who feel their contribution is recognised are more likely to find their work meaningful.
Offer perks employees love: Mobility Budget
All jobs have perks. But not all jobs have great perks!
A strong benefits package will make your team feel they’re valued and in the right role. A great package will stand out from perks at previous jobs and (more importantly!) competitor companies who’d like to headhunt them and in today’s remote world, it should benefit everyone no matter where they’re working.
The Mobility Budget from Free Now is a unique employee benefit that employees from anywhere in the world can use and enjoy. You offer each employee a budget to spend on travel (public transport, taxis, petrol, car washes - whatever they want!). They can spend their budget how they want, and you manage everything easily from your computer. With one-click onboarding and digital usage reports - you can tangibly measure how much employees employees are engaging with this benefit. How to develop an employee engagement strategy?
One of the most important aspects of developing an employee engagement strategy is to value your employees. Help team members find the purpose within your company and show them an active interest in his growth and career development.
Want to learn more about engaging employees through travel benefits? Download the survey here:
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