A new year means new goals and in 2017 many businesses will be focusing (once again) on improving employee engagement across their companies.
Another year has come and gone and with 2016 in the rearview mirror, people everywhere are getting started on their New Year's resolutions. For many businesses one of the biggest areas of focus (once again) will be improving employee engagement across their organisation.
For the past few years, companies everywhere have been trying to respond to the alarmingly low levels of engagement in modern workers. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report is home to the most often-cited statistic: their research uncovered only 13 per cent of professionals across the globe consider themselves engaged at their job.
Moving into 2017 engagement tactics will continue to be in the spotlight. What should leaders be doing to cement their commitment to upping the levels of team engagement? Here at Power2Motivate we pride ourselves on helping our clients unlock the highest levels of engagement in their teams. To make reaching your 2017 goals a little easier, we put together a list of five steps to help you get there.
1. Approach engagement strategically
Engaging your employees isn't something that happens by accident, nor is it something that comes about with a couple of half-hearted efforts. You need to be willing to approach employee engagement like any other business objective. This means sitting down and creating a strategy, securing buy-in from all levels of leadership, creating KPIs and measurement tools etc. The more thoughtful planning that goes into your engagement plan, the more likely it will be to succeed (and stick).
2. Respect your team
Respect is the foundation of all professional relationships. Without it, very little would get done. According to Forbes, it also lives at the heart of employee engagement. When staff members don't feel they are being respected, they lose motivation, morale suffers and problems begin to pile up. Make sure you are actively valuing your employees whenever possible. Whether this is in the form of rewards for a job well done, requesting a team members input on projects or just just general recognition - make sure your team knows you appreciate and respect their work.
3. Define engagement in an applicable way
Laying out long-term goals for engagement is important, but you need to ensure part of your approach involves showing your team how they can be more actively engaged on a day-to-day basis. Ensure that your management team is actively committed to discussing engagement goals at weekly meetings. Define what this looks like for each different team. Keep your action items as clear and attainable as possible.
4. Perfect the employee engagement survey
We've talked about the problems with employee engagement surveys before but when executed correctly, they can be extremely powerful tools. No one knows what will engage employees better than your employees themselves. The key here is to make sure you follow the survey up with swift action. According to a Gallup survey, after completing these questionnaires employees expect some type of actionable response. Yet many businesses fail to deliver. Commit to more targeted surveys and speedier changes that reflect employee needs and engagement should follow.
5. Turn to the professionals
Our team at Power2Motivate is well-versed in enacting strategies that promote employee engagement and help make it stick. Whether it is through our years of service recognition programme or our extensive employee rewards gallery - our platforms and tools can help ensure 2017 is a year of considerable engagement across your team. Reach out to one of our reps to find out more today!