We all know that employee engagement is important, in fact, a recent survey from Cascade HR states that 40% of the respondents said that engaging employees was a cause of major concern and ultimately their biggest mountain to climb in 2019. Followed by recruitment and then retention.
Here’s my theory: to get all three of these challenges right, you need to get employee engagement right.
If your employees aren’t engaged they will leave. Our friends at Culture Amp define employee engagement as, “levels of enthusiasm and connection employees have with their organization. It’s a measure of how motivated people are to put in extra effort for their organization, and a sign of how committed they are to staying there.” If your employees aren’t motivated enough how are you going to convince others to come and join the team?
And the proof is in the statistics, we’ve talked about it before, only 14% of your employees are actively engaged in their work.
Employee engagement is entirely dependant on the actions of leadership, management and people teams – without strong employee engagement you can not recruit and retain the people in your organisation. Free lunches are good and well, but millennials are after more – and if your workplace does not provide this they are heading for the door. An organisation should be providing its people with purpose, an ideal working environment and one in which they are supported to succeed.
Stuck for ideas on how to engage your staff? Here’s three that we love.
Engage in your values.
Your company should live and breathe your values, and bring them to life every day of the year.
This starts at the top, where employees need to see their managers and leaders living the characteristics and behaviours they want their employees to display day in and day out. In companies where leaders model the desired behavior, employees are 55 per cent more engaged, 53 per cent more focused and far more likely to stay at the company.
Engage in celebration.
It’s easy to get caught up in the pursuit of the long term vision. At Mentorloop we’re all about celebrating the wins – big and small! Counting the small wins regularly at your organisation can be an easy way to show recognition to your hard-working employees.
It’s as easy as saying thank you. Surprisingly overlooked, it’s probably one of the easiest ways to build trust among your employees. Tangible celebrations and acknowledgements shouldn’t be overlooked and can be a wonderful way to engage in celebration. Your employees will not say no to a free lunch, and good food always brings people together!
Engaging in celebration in the workplace tells your employee that they are valued members of the team and that they are contributing to your organisation’s purpose.
Engage from day one.
Humans crave connection and belonging. They want to ‘find their tribe’ in their personal and working life. One way to help employees feel better engaged and connected is through mentoring.
New hires can be matched with a peer mentor to get them settled in their workplace and show them the ropes of their new environment. Employees can be put into mentoring groups, to connect more with their workmates – there may be many ways to mentor that you haven’t even thought of yet, that will get people connecting and learning from each other across departments and hierarchy.
What are you waiting for? You can start your mentoring program with us today in literally 5 minutes.
