How To Enhance Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement has rapidly become one of the most crucial criteria in measuring work satisfaction. Today, most employees are looking for more than just their regular 9-5 job. Most employees are happy about their companies, generally like to be involved in their objectives, and are connected to their co-workers.
In a study done by Harvard, data revealed that more than 70% of managers felt that employee engagement is one of the most pertinent factors in determining an organization's overall success. However, even though employee engagement is viewed as a positive trait across companies, most employees in organizations are disengaged. According to Gallup's study data, approximately 30% of employees stated that they are engaged at work.
Various factors can cause low employee engagement [1], including but not limited to poor company communication, lack of recognition by managers or superiors, and not being in alignment with an organization's mission and vision. It is undeniable that company leaders will need to start recognizing employee engagement as an essential business strategy. It leads to higher productivity levels, employee retention over the long term, and improved quality of work.
What Is Employee Engagement?
Before we dive further into determining why employee engagement is crucial for the success of an organization, let us first try to understand what employee engagement is. An "engaged employee" is defined as wholly involved in and positively energetic about their work and thus takes necessary actions to further a company's bottom line and reputation. An engaged employee presents a positive attitude toward an organization, its mission, vision, and associated values.
In stark contrast, a disengaged employee may be someone who does not align with an organization, accomplishes the bare minimum work required of them, or even actively damaging an organization's reputation. Employee engagement is synchronous with other concepts such as employee satisfaction, which further aids in developing employee experience.
Importance Of Engagement
For employees who are totally in tune with an organization and work toward growing within a company, engagement is more than just a paycheck. It is the dedication they have to their roles that drives them to put in their best efforts. To understand and improve employee engagement, start with employee communication.
Employee communication remains the most crucial tool to achieve team development, higher productivity rates, and better working relationships. Companies that provide clear, concise, and precise communication can quickly build trust among employees. Most of the time, organizations fail to understand the main issues related to employee engagement. Most top leaders assume that engagement is directly connected to salary and compensation. They generally believe that employees resign from a company due to a lack of options within or due to an offer of better salary incentives elsewhere.
Engagement, connection, and communication are the three most crucial aspects of the successful growth of an organization, internally as well as externally.
A study conducted by MSW Research and Dale Carnegie showed some interesting facts. It stated that other than just money, three independent, different, solid, and more essential factors directly impact employee engagement.
These factors include:
- An employee's trust in a company's leadership and management
- An employee's relationships with the team and supervisors
- An employee's feeling of pride in being a part of a company
A recent study on employee benefits conducted in 2017 [2] revealed that most of the reasons stated by employees about switching jobs were associated with unsatisfactory work conditions.
These were:
- Compensation
- Career development
- Work-life balance
- Supervisor relationships
It's probably unsurprising that companies invest enormous amounts of time and money in different communication strategies to improve employee engagement.
How To Improve Engagement
To begin with, you have to create an environment that encourages employees to be involved in their work intrinsically. If you want your employees to have high levels of trust, motivation, commitment, involvement, and empowerment, invest your efforts in improving employee communication.
For big organizations, it is vital to ensure that employees align with changing priorities of a business. How can employees be motivated and work their best if they are not provided with relevant, accurate, engaging information and instruction? With proper communication, employees will work efficiently and reduce time wastage.
Communication is also vital while setting clear expectations. Employees need the guidelines to understand what's expected of them. Suppose they don't know precisely what they need to do or when they do not deliver results properly. Effective communication helps them prioritize tasks and plan their workdays efficiently.
How Can HR Use Communication To Enhance Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is directly proportional to employee performance. If you improve one, the other automatically gets better. This will also help in developing your value as an HR professional. HR teams can take critical measures to ensure effective employee engagement and employee communication. A report published by Gallup [3] listed necessary drivers of employee engagement.
These are as follows:
- Use communication to enable and enhance organizational transparency.
- Recognize employee efforts on various grounds and award them as per the efforts.
- Develop clear communication lines internally and execute them effectively.
- Communicate strategies and business plans to every member of the organization.
- Use a communication platform to strengthen and develop your internal communication.
- Encourage open communication between employees, their peers, and supervisors.
- Encourage employees to use social media.
It is essential to know that to increase employee experience, develop employee engagement, and improve communication, organizations must cultivate trust with engagement to establish a sense of unity to further the company as a single unit.
References:
[1] How to keep your remote team productive and engaged?
