10 Simple Methods to Increase Employee Engagement

Given the pandemic situation in the world right now, which has made working remotely to become the new normal, organizations are introducing changes and shifts into the norms of their company culture.  This is leading to upheavals in the levels of engagement within their teams. When the employers sense this upheaval, a panic ensues, as employee engagement can be directly correlated to profitability, enhanced productivity, and customer service.

Gallup while surveying workers and employees across organizations in the United States, discovered a highly disturbing insight: a loss of a staggering amount of $319 billion, due to low productivity levels as 70% of the workforce was found to be disengaged and disinterested in their work. That costs an amount of $450 billion to the economy.

At the same time, it was also found that the most engaged section of workers that comprised 25% of them, thought of the most radical and innovative ideas that gave way to bring a slew of new customers to the company and they had progressive entrepreneurial energy. To bring out and mobilize their employees’ full capabilities, these organizations conceive an environment where the employees find it easier to flourish, acclimatize, and adapt to the complex expectations and working conditions of today. What if your organization could get exposure to these kinds of creative methods that can help amp up your employees’ efforts directly to execute their core missions seamlessly? Can the impending issues that we are currently facing be resolved through utilizing this unharnessed power, creativity, and efficiency? What are the ways of boosting the practices of employee engagement and sustaining them for the long term?

In this particular blog, we will research into the definition of employee engagement, familiarize with how to improve employee engagement, and how management and leadership teams can use the latest insights and strategies to improve employee engagement within their organizations.

The aspects and focus areas that we will essentially cover are:

• What is employee engagement?
• Ten Ways to boost employee engagement?
• How to support employee engagement in the workplace for a long time?
• Techexactly Employee App Solution
• Final Thoughts

What is employee engagement?

The concept of employee engagement can be defined as the extent to which an employee feels driven and motivated towards the work that they do and the company that they work for. It is the emotional commitment which an employee shows towards the organization and its values. In contrast, many people mistake it for employees acting happier and having a feeling of job satisfaction, though it necessarily does not mean that. 

Someone being happy at their workplace does not inevitably mean that they will be exerting themselves, putting in the extra hours to increase their productivity, representing themselves as the ideal employee of their organization. There might be many elements in the office place to increase the happiness quotient, such as game rooms, gyms, free massage facilities, and keg parties on Fridays for beneficial reasons. But making them happy and keeping them engaged are two different things. The same thing can be said for employee satisfaction. Even though an engaged employee might show satisfaction, engagement does not guarantee that a satisfied worker might do the extra work. They can easily leave the organization after a headhunter lures them away with just a 10% hike on their current salary.

From this viewpoint, let’s look at it to get a better understanding: satisfied employees will look happy just by being at work, and engaged employees will be glad to put dedicated extra hours at work without being asked. They will do so when they have an emotional commitment to their work and company and are not there only for the steady paycheck or the upcoming promotion but to achieve the organizational goals. An engaged employee will try to understand their role and explore how they fit into the organization’s objectives and purpose for churning increased sales, higher service quality, and profit levels to the company. They will put in discretionary endeavors, meaning they will voluntarily put in the extra effort, even if they do not get any financial compensation for that.

Instituting and building employee engagement is a two-way street, meaning, it lies in the communication and trust between the company and the teamwork of its members.

Ten Ways to Boost Employee Engagement

As defined in the above-mentioned paragraphs, improving your teams’ engagement level will consequently lead to substantial business achievements and developments. The organization needs first to figure out the engagement levels and identify the gaps in their strategy. 

Below mentioned are some strategies that can help to enhance employee engagement levels and help ideate ways on how to get employee participation.  

Plan Outings and Excursions

A way of fostering employee engagement is by looking at how an employee bonds with another. And the best way an employee can comfortably know and communicate with each other without any formalities is outside of work, outing, or excursion. Leadership can plan with the managers to set up such opportunities where employees can connect with their team members comfortably. It can be as simple as sudden, impromptu potluck dinners, a whole or a weekend outing in the city or near the workplace, or on an onsite tour. Include an assortment of events to keep it engaging and boost inclusivity.

Create an Engaging Middle Management

As mentioned before, the managers’ engagement and energy levels can directly affect the work processes of their teams.

Based on a Gallup survey, 34% of the US workers who showed incredible engagement levels were directly linked to 35% of their managers who were enthusiastic and passionate in their work.

Passion and positive attitude are contagious; therefore, company leaders should incorporate this aspect into their middle management to foster an engaging work environment.

Collect and Provide Your Due Input

 If an employee cannot determine whether they are doing well at their job, it can affect their engagement levels. Similarly they must get their voices heard, especially when facing any issue or difficulty at work.

Exchange of Feedbacks and engagement goes hand in hand, which signifies towards collecting feedback and opinions from the team members as well as giving them back. You can take input using google forms, surveys, and other similar anonymous methods or use any other online feedback system and test it to check its accessibility and easiness. After collecting the feedback, sit down with the leadership to chalk out ways of implementing it. 

If changes cannot be made in specific areas based on individual feedback, share and explain the reasons at team meetings, or catch up sessions. Organizations that do not take much of an initiative to follow through on their employees’ feedback are more likely to create disengaged workers. 

A transparent exchange of feedback is what employees expect out of the management to get pointers on developing themselves. Like giving feedback, employees crave the same as well from their managers, so middle management should take the onus to do regular review sessions with their team members.

Provide an Inviting Onboarding Experience

The first few weeks of the job are what the employees look most forward to. Introducing them to their new roles through a rigid and uninteresting onboarding, dulling their eagerness in the process, is the easiest way of creating disengaged employees. Hence the employee’s first few weeks in the workplace are extremely vital with the structure of the onboarding process in particular.

By familiarizing them through an effective onboarding process, you will connect more thoughtfully with your new employees. Talk in-depth with them about their roles and responsibilities, organizational mission and vision, team goals, and help them to understand the value of the decisive position that they own in the company. Think about including elements that will excite them regarding their prospects in the company rather than overwhelming them. 

Create a corporate environment of doing a smooth progression from onboarding to live work on the floor. This will set them up for excelling in their role from the very first day.

Focus on Physical and Mental Well-Being

The wellbeing of Employees comprises both physical and mental wellness. It is something that is often overlooked. 

Ensuring the wellness of employees is an essential factor in promoting employee engagement. Ample rest to body and mind, financial stability, and the daily nutritive requirements are some of the basic needs that every employee thinks about accomplishing.

Try checking in with your colleagues both formally and informally every week, of course, your way of approach will vary from employee to employee. Assuring and safeguarding employees’ wellness both inside and outside the office premises can increase their engagement, focus, and productivity towards work. Organize workout and meditation sessions or coordinate such classes at a company outing in a health retreat. Encourage prioritizing mental health fitness and certain days off when employees need to take a step back and focus on themselves.

Appreciate Diligence and Honor Accomplishments

When employees see the leadership and management giving due appreciation for their hard work and diligence without expectation, it will naturally amp up their engagement. 

Appreciation and Recognition are two words that hold a great deal of gravity in a corporate work atmosphere. Organizations practicing and emphasizing deeply on active employee engagement will always appreciate their employees for their endeavors far more than their peers. Recognition is an essential factor that predicts the engagement levels, so it is imperative to make sure the receiver feels acknowledged and recognized. 

Try to find out how your team of coworkers would prefer appreciated and recognized as each team functions differently. Encourage your managers so that they spread positive vibes and recognition regularly. Apply the “Situation, Behaviour & Impact Model” for effective recognition, instead of only saying “good job!”. Consult with the HR department to chalk out an incentive program.

Embrace and Augment Creativity

Nothing works better in increasing employee engagement than when the employees can have opportunity to experiment and be creative about doing their work, or work on their interests outside of work. The efficiency, and productivity gets badly affected when employees work like machines day in and day out without being able to think about anything else. This is due to work being so exhausting and demanding that it takes up most of their hours. Naturally the engagement levels of the employees take a hit.

Fostering creativity and focusing on innovation is one of the most compelling ways to engage in active practice of employee engagement within the company. An organization should always protect a certain amount of time, out of the regular working hours during which the employees can take up creative initiatives to work on their passion projects and personal interests. These can in turn produce some financially impactful, dynamic and innovative solutions for the company such as lengthy, tedious, time-intensive processes made simple to be completed in a short amount of time, saving hours of exhaustion and effort. 

This creative practice facilitates team bonding and employee engagement in which employees can have the scope to do experimentation, experience success or failure, and reflect to create actual streamlined processes and products.

Advocate Honesty and Clarity

Before we delve into the point, lets define a transparent and open work ambiance: it is a work environment, where employees share a feeling of trust with each other where they can open up about their differences, their opinions, that provides a sense of belonging. 

It facilitates collaborative, open, unambiguous communication, and stability. Also it helps the employees to discern their role and how they can do more at it to connect to the stakeholders and wider team. When the environment gives a feeling of comfort and trustworthiness, engagement becomes easier. 

Transparency facilitates employee engagement so aim to make transparency the “rule of the thumb” of the organization, where concealing of information becomes the exception.

Rather than reprimand, discuss both the good and bad company metrics in organization wide meetings. Be open, approachable and frank about asking feedback. Discuss the feedback and be vulnerable when you find yourself clueless about tackling the problem at hand. Work out ways to tear down the barriers between teams by fostering cross team mingling and relationships.

Offer and Accentuate opportunities for Professional Growth

Every other employee dedicating hours to an organization looks for opportunities in professional growth and development.

Offering professional development opportunities helps in instilling employee engagement as in doing so, the management takes the initiative to assist their employees in boosting competency to help reach their professional goals. When an employee sees that you are contributing to their individual growth he or she feels valued. 

Now this can be done in a number of ways starting from organizing internal workshops, lunch n learn sessions to giving out research or education stipends by forming partnerships with internal or external universities. This imparts positivity, which engages the employee to focus on their professional growth opportunities within their current roles. This keeps them engaged for the long term where they feel less likely to look for opportunities outside their current company.

Promote Volunteering

There are employees who want to know if their company gives importance to making positive contributions to society. CSR activities and volunteering opportunities boosts employee engagement as it endorses bonding by uniting employees towards a common cause. Ask your HR department to look for philanthropic organizations near to your office location and plan a volunteering event after working hours maybe a week or few times a month. You can ask your employees to register for the event as a team to use it as team bonding experience and contribute to the community at the same time. Include a Volunteering Day in your office agenda, where employees can take a paid day off work to dedicate their time towards a cause they care about.

How to support employee engagement in the workplace for a long time?

Take a look at the approaches mentioned below to bolster and maintain employee engagement. Start with a few or all of them and carry them out with the initiatives mentioned above to drive employee engagement in the long run. These approaches are in line with the abovementioned employee engagement tips.

To start with Providing Flexibility to employees is a crucial factor in maintaining employee engagement. Highly engaged employees require a sound, healthy body, and mind to maintain their enthusiasm. A meaningful work-life balance provides that. Remote working opportunities and Flexible work timings meet the criteria of work-life balance that most employees yearn. By providing flexible working hours now and then, you show them the due consideration and respect to keep them thoroughly engaged. This can be easily be tagged as one of the most important employee engagement resources.

Based on an estimation it has been found that an individual’s rating for their management or leadership team shows their aptitude for and their level of engagement. Hence, along with coaching the middle management, the senior managers and the extended leadership should also be trained in tools that can help them better engage and empower their colleagues and boost employee engagement. Leadership development seminars and upskilling programs can be organized to equip these people in their roles better. Having meaningful training sessions with a colleague or co-worker will enable the leadership team to find purposeful ways to increase employee engagement.

You will find it easier to improve the engagement levels and sustain the improved levels for long term, when you know what the levels were in the first place. Therefore, it is extremely important for you to send out employee engagement surveys or a survey every now and then, or at least twice a year to keep a track of the engagement levels. It will help to address the areas of concern that need the most attention and maintain a standard for future efforts. After analysing the data from the gathered responses, share the results with all the teams. As discussed before, Transparency is essential!. Brainstorm ideas and determine ways of addressing the concerns based on the data.

Techexactly Employee App Solution

Service Systems Associates is a leading service provider company based in Denver that specializes in providing a range of visitor services for cultural attractions such as zoos, nature parks, theme parks and aquariums, spread across a vast geographical area within the USA. To maintain the provision of a wide range of services they regularly require to hire employees from diverse backgrounds with varied qualifications be it seasonal new hires temporarily or on-field staff supervising the last mile activities. The real challenge was communicating, hiring, training and onboarding them on a day to day basis that became quite an overwhelming affair. Maintaining a standardization with the many new or temporary hires, reaching out to the remote workforce spread across the vast partner or client locations without any delay, was a Herculean task. 

When they came to us at Tech Exactly, they wanted us to create a solution that will deal with these issues keeping their company values employees in mind. They wanted the solution to focus on employee engagement through professional & socio-cultural inclusiveness. After much consultation, reaching out through a dedicated mobile application was considered to be the best solution. 

So Techexactly created an app named “SSAY on the Go”. As going by the name, this app can be used to train and onboard employees on the go, anywhere and at any time that assures optimum employee engagement. The app has

• its own chat feature through which employees can convey messages and communicate with each other without any delay, send targeted messages to the employees based on the departments and job roles.
• A highly engaging induction program that is made up of a series of intriguing orientation videos to enhance retention.
• Orientation training, Optional or Mandatory Trainings are shown in the app as per the logged-in user’s role. Quiz based training programs with incentives. Training Certifications. Rewards & Recognition Programs.
• Notifications & emergency alerts. Private & Group Messaging equipped with two-way communication to feel united and in touch with the remote workforce at all times.
• Feature providing repository access to files both in the mobile storage as well to ones stored in the remote server location. This was done to endorse easy distribution of  legal, technical and promotional documents on the go.
• Custom Integration with eStratex; the existing human resource management system in Service Systems Associates. This was done so that employees can file their attendance, do payroll processing and other HR and finance-related work on the app itself. itself.

Final Thoughts

Enhancing employee engagement levels at your workplace is no longer a secret now. You just have to ask your employees what they want and follow up on their requirements. Be thoughtful in your approach and you will reap the reward and benefit from it for years to come. Organizations who take a definitive, authentic approach and get this thing right will achieve massive turnover with huge financial returns, surpassing its peers to easily make their way to the top position of “the best place to work” lists.

At Tech Exactly, we have provided high-end solutions and mobile applications to organizations and companies facing frequent challenges dealing with revving up to increasingly engage employees in the workplace. Our team of motivated and proficient coders & developers has helped clients worldwide to reach their business goals and objectives. 

Please find case studies of a few of our projects given below:

Interested to know and discuss more about our services? Go ahead and schedule for a chat over a cup of coffee!