How to Increase Employee Engagement

Engaged employees perform better than their less enthusiastic counterparts. Sadly, only around a third of the US workforce feels engaged on the job, making them a fairly rare commodity.

Workers that aren’t engaged don’t perform at the same level as those who are, causing teams and the company to fail to reach its full potential. Plus, they often take more time from their managers, and their attitudes may even drag down those around them, decreasing job satisfaction across the board.

Luckily, there are things companies can do to bolster employee engagement. If you are ready to get started, here are a few options to explore.

Define Success

While saying you want to increase engagement is important, it isn’t nearly as critical as defining what success looks like for your organization. Without clear goals or objectives, the idea of improving engagement is too ambiguous, making it hard for managers and employees to take action.

Exactly what the definition of success looks like will and should vary from one company to the next. Consider your ideal workforce, culture, and environment, and see what engagement targets are realistic, beneficial, and measurable. Then, use that information to craft meaningful and actionable goals that you can share.

Set the Tone from the Top

If company leaders don’t consider engagement a priority, change is unlikely. While leaders can’t force employee attitudes to change, by understanding the importance of engagement and striving to improve it, they set a tone that influences their actions.

When leadership isn’t involved and dedicated to the cause, they may incidentally create barriers that harm engagement initiatives. Similarly, they may be less open to feedback from their employees, decreasing the odds that they will approve critical changes.

Organizational leaders need to make it clear that engagement is critical to the company’s success and be willing to make adjustments to increase it among their workers. Plus, they need to share their willingness to receive feedback and actually follow through on their promises.

But Work from the Bottom

Once the leadership team is onboard, they need to be supporters of change, but not necessarily directors of it. Often, engagement needs to be addressed at the lower levels, ideally by empowering managers to work with their teams to make improvements and promote positive change.

Let managers discuss pain points with their employees and find areas of improvement and innovation. Allow them to locate the barriers and present pathways around them. In a best-case scenario, give them the ability to institute changes on the local level without additional approvals.

Often, managers and employees are most aware of any difficulties they face and may have ideas for solving them. By using them as a resource, significant change can begin where it matters most.

Looking to Add to Your Talented Workforce?

Increasing employee engagement will take time, but it is possible if you make it a priority and take active steps to ensure it becomes a reality. If you’d like to learn more, the team at Equis Staffing can provide you with helpful insights. Contact us to discuss your questions or objectives with one of our knowledgeable staff members today and see how our workplace engagement expertise can benefit you.