Personnel engagement is fundamental to the success of any business. Studies have shown that a workforce that is more engaged correlates well with a company that is thriving and growing.
As a business manager, you may be asking yourself, “How do I measure and improve the engagement of my employees?” Below, let us look at how you can go about this process:
1. Understand the goals of your employees
When you are interpreting the employee engagement surveys, you will need to understand that all your employees have personal goals and values. For that reason, you should realize that what makes a certain employee happy, may not work for another.
Engagement can, therefore, be improved by understanding the preferences of your personnel, asking for their input on a regular basis, and make certain that there is transparency when you are communicating.
2. Utilize upward evaluations
All businesses should favor upward evaluations where employees are provided with the opportunity to provide feedback to the company leadership and their managers. In this kind of assessment, each person will be able to identify the key items where they need feedback.
The evaluations should then be used over time to check whether there is an improvement or not. You will find that this type of feedback can be very motivating, and it helps in actively engaging all the personnel.
3. Conduct employee surveys
Besides the occasional client surveys, personnel surveys can also be of great help. When you receive a high score on the client surveys, it will normally indicate that there is lots of employee engagement taking place.
Additionally, it will be important to ensure that you recognize all the team members for the accomplishments they have made, and make sure to hold regular team-building activities.
4. Review employee experiences through the 15five process
The 15five process is a weekly review process, where all the employees are provided with fifteen minutes to answer five questions about their experience. Each employee will, therefore, have a chance to provide information on his or her thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
Feedback provided is then rolled up to the managers, and to additional persons, allowing each person to be heard on a regularly, and then submit comments, which can be used for further employee engagement
5. Balance the internal and external projects carefully
Ensure you provide your employees with the chance to choose the internal projects that are of interest to them. Additionally, they should also be allowed to come up with their own ideas, as well as projects, by being allowed to utilize the company resources entirely.
To ensure that some projects are not neglected, aim to make sure that employees spend half their time on internal projects, and the other half on the external ones. Often, you will find that some of the most successful projects completed by the personnel will be internal projects, which have been spun off from an external deal.
6. Value the work-life balance
There is a need to stress the importance of being able to balance life and work. Where possible, you can provide rewards to employees for taking off time from work, as well as having log lunch breaks.
Working without structured breaks can prove to be antithetical to workplace productivity, especially when dealing with a younger workforce. When your employees are happy and relaxed, you will find that there will be better engagement in the workforce.
7. Check in with weekly assemblies
Holding a weekly thirty-minute meeting with your employees is highly important. You can ask each employee two questions “What do you like about your job?” as well as “What would you want to change?” Make sure to listen to all the answers that are provided.
Employees are able to tell whether you truly value the opinions they provide, as well as whether you care about their professional growth. You should show the personnel that you are willing to sacrifice a short-term project, for their long-term professional advancement. When you do this, you will find that both you and your company will benefit a great deal.
8. Conduct an anonymous survey every quarter
Every quarter, you can choose to email all your personnel a copy of the 360-degree feedback. In that survey, the personnel will be required to anonymously rate themselves, the people they work with, as well as their managers. The questions in the survey should cover all the key areas of your business.
Additionally, they can also be allowed to provide feedback on the aspects they like or do not like about their roles in the company. What is more, you can ensure that employees who receive the highest peer ratings are provided with incentives, such as cash bonuses at the end of each survey period.
9. Ensure you are professional at all times
You need to be professional when interacting with employees from all the different levels in the business. The interactions need to be courteous and should be performed in a clear manner. Often, employee dissatisfaction stems from the disdain that personnel has for the conduct exhibited by their managers.
Communication can be achieved in a number of ways, including the use of images. In any communication strategy, you will find that images and photos will play a very important role.
Not yet convinced about their importance; meet James Chapman, CEO of Bella Bathrooms. “When we started out in the already saturated luxury bathroom industry, we were surprised at how many of our competitors didn’t use visual marketing,” stated James, “We figured it could be just what we needed to stand out, and we gave it a go. We used images showing the exquisite home interiors of celebrities, even turning some of them into creative memes and infographics and sharing them in our blogging and social media campaigns. We went viral many times. It’s a no-brainer.”
It is quite clear that understanding how to measure the engagement of your employees, and ensuring that you prioritize it is quite important, as it can help provide better results for the business. As a business owner or manager, you need to take on an approach that not only helps measure the engagement of your employees but also helps encourage it.