You think you’ve got them in the palm of your hand with beers after work on a Friday and free cake Mondays. But it’s going to take a little more than sweet bribery to get employees to be completely engaged at work. And that’s where we can help.
Why you need a strategy for employee engagement
Disengaged employees impact on job growth, productivity, company culture, and profitability. Staff who aren’t engaged are far more likely to be absent from work, cause workplace accidents and result in mistakes, which ultimately means high customer dissatisfaction.
The most important factor to consider is the very people at the heart of your organisation – your staff. So, if you want to see real results, it’s them you need to question. Ask them everything:
*What annoys them or wastes their time?
*Do they feel technology lets them down?
* What would make them enjoy their job more?
Employees will want to know why you’re asking so the most crucial thing is it share and act on your findings.
Getting started
Before you start cultivating a plan, understand – and make sure your staff can identify – what your company stands for. That’s its goals, mission, and foresight. If you don’t have these you lack direction, and motivation as a result.
If the answers seem out-of-date, it’s time to get the leadership team together to distinguish the values to customers and in employees. Make sure everyone is on the same wavelength.
1. Understand the current engagement
It’s important to understand what’s working and not working within the business. So, find out what positively influences engagement. Some staff enjoy positive atmospheres while others want a trusting management team or meaningful tasks.
It could be that certain policies within the company are affecting the way staff engage. For example, the maternity or paternity policy, health benefits or training opportunities.
2. Communicate well
Transparency is key to success. So, the clearer the communication between colleagues and colleagues with leadership teams, the better. A quick and simple way to do this is by increasing the time spent with colleagues to discuss their workload and to set goals.
Telling staff what they need to know and when is the crux to engagement as no one likes to feel kept in the dark, especially when it comes to things like internal promotions, redundancies, and training opportunities.
What better way to ensure everyone is kept in the loop, than with implementation of a modern-day intranet like Attollo. Safe and secure, only staff can log in and access important updates on the news centre of the home page. They can even instantly message people for immediate feedback or answers to important questions on the same platform.
3. Set realistic targets
Targets in your employee engagement plan should be clearly defined and measurable for success purposes. The goals you set should be realistic so that staff can look to achieve. Targets set should also be consistent with your business’ objectives and be sure to include both short-term and long-term goals for some quick wins.
4. Acknowledge and reward
Everyone likes to be praised and in a public arena, even better. This could be in the form of a leadership chart for sales, for example. The praise doesn’t need to be of monetary value. It can simply be acknowledgement on the intranet for colleagues to see and comment on. Praise could be acknowledged on the homepage of Attollo for all staff to see.
5. Measure successes
Once a plan is in motion, the leadership team should be patient as changes are rolled out and keep checking back with staff to ensure reactions are gauged. The engagement plan should be evaluated after the first month and continually thereafter. You could measure in terms of employee attendance, turnover metrics, or other pre-determined aspects.
Need more ideas?
Our team here at Attollo can help with more ways to create plans to ensure employees are engaged. But one incredibly effective way is to ensure staff are all singing from the same hymn sheet. Using a one platform system daily, makes for easy and fast communication, which is where great engagement begins. For a free demonstration of our software, contact our team today.