One of the most important aspects of engagement is how aligned your employees are to your company goals. Here's what you need to know about employee alignment.
You've heard of employee engagement, but what about employee alignment? This is a new way of thinking about engagement, whereby companies look at how in sync their employees are to the wider company's goals.
There are a number of benefits that employee alignment brings to a business, but how do you further it at your organisation? Introducing incentives is one of the principal methods - here's why.
What benefits does employee alignment bring?
Employee alignment means slightly different things to different people. At its most basic level, an aligned organisation is one where everyone is on the same page. However, most people take this further to look at how much employees understand their place in the company and how they contribute to its broader aims.
Just one in 10 firms are happy with current levels of employee engagement, according to CBI.
Alignment is essential to engagement. Just one in 10 firms are happy with current levels of employee engagement, according to CBI. One reason why they may not have the desired level of engagement is that their employees don't understand how their day-to-day job contributes to the business' success. This leads to low levels of motivation and morale, as they feel what they do doesn't have any real impact.
When an employee is unmotivated, they don't produce as much - meaning a lack of alignment can have a significant impact on your bottom line. In fact, companies that have high employee engagement were found to experience 21 per cent higher engagement than their bottom-quartile counterparts in a survey by Gallup.
What's more, alignment is essential for your employees' sense of self-worth and personal success. They will only feel successful if they know what they're doing really makes a difference.
How do you create employee alignment?
If you want everyone to understand their place in your company, you need to make sure employees appreciate how each of their tasks contributes to your organisation's goals. This means setting a clear mission statement for your organisation - without one, there's no way you can align anyone's tasks to it.
When you assign projects to teams, include a section explaining how that project will have an impact on revenue or any other goals your organisation might have. Ensure company-wide communication regularly explains how different teams are having an impact on the organisation's aims, and mention every team at some point in these communications.
Employee alignment and incentives
Another way to ensure employee alignment is through incentives. Rewarding tasks that have a clear impact on organisational goals is a great way to reinforce the message that your employees are contributing to the success of the whole business. After all, why spend money on rewards if the tasks you're giving prizes for don't have an impact on revenue?
It's also necessary to incentivise both individual and team efforts. One of the most important aspects of alignment is that everyone knows their place within their team, and that teams know their place within the whole organisation. By rewarding both individual and team efforts, you'll help employees make that link between their own performance and the wider group's.
When communicating big rewards wins, you should let the whole company know about the prize, and explain exactly how that team or individual's efforts have contributed to your organisational goals. Regular communication is crucial to employee alignment, and incentives give you an excellent excuse to discuss project wins at frequent intervals without sounding forced. It also helps employees feel appreciated.
Realise employee alignment through Power2Motivate
At Power2Motivate, we have years of experience creating incentives and recognition programsthat really work. To find out more about any of our rewards programs and how we can help create more employee alignment at your organisation, please reach out to the team today or request a demo.