Did you know that over 70% of office workers in the US feel disengaged at work? Employee disengagement is a huge problem that refers to the way individual employees feel about their job. As a result, the level of disengagement often reflects in the work performance of the employee. While over 90% of management professionals believe that employee engagement is crucial to an organization’s growth, less than 25% of these professionals have actionable items to follow to create the engagement. So, if you are wondering why your employees seem disgruntled and disconnected from their projects, keep reading on to know how you can turn things around!
Why do employees feel disengaged?
Employee disengagement occurs due to a variety of reasons. Some of these include the following:
- The lack of constructive and proper communication between employees and their team leads or managers
- An uninspiring office environment
- An incomplete or ineffective onboarding process
- Feeling unrecognized or underappreciated at their work
- Feeling inadequately compensated for work
- Lack of socialization with teammates and peers
- Lack of connection to their organization’s core missions
- Lack of direct or consistent feedback from managers
What can organizations gain from high employee engagement?
Well, for starters, high employee engagement goes a long way in improving the attrition rate of an organization. 75% of disengaged employees leave their organizations because of their bosses. Conversely, engaged employees are 87% more likely to stay on in an organization, instead of leaving it.
With higher engagement comes higher commitment and focus on work. Due to this, employee engagement is often attributed to improvements seen across multiple facets of an organization such as innovation, product building, adherence to deadlines, and customer satisfaction. It also helps with ensuring long-term commitments from employees, which means that your star players are less likely to leave you for the competition?
Great, but why would I need an employee engagement partner for this?
Here’s the thing, employers cannot blindly start implementing engagement activities in companies for their employees by picking items off a list. Engagement initiatives need to align with your organization’s overarching goals, which is where an employee engagement partner comes into play. As trained professionals, they study your business strategy and current work environment to identify key areas of improvement. Based on that, they offer suggestions about the different types or kinds of employee engagement activities that you should be using.
Let’s say that one of your key goals is to improve sales. You pick an engagement activity that you like and realize that the activity you’ve chosen (office Olympics) is more suited for team building and promoting a healthier lifestyle. While these factors are important too, they do not align with the goals you have in mind, which means that you’ve wasted considerable time and efforts on the wrong avenue.
Working with employee engagement strategists can help you avoid the loss of such valuable resources by hitting the nail on the head right on the first go.
What are a few employee engagement activities that you can use right now?
The following activities are a few examples of the things you can do to improve employee engagement in the workplace:
Let employees design their career paths
Many organizations have standardized expectations from employees in terms of their career graphs. While this works for employees on some level, many others like to grow their careers at their own pace. Employees also appreciate having greater control over their learning and space of growing, rather than having to fall in line with pre-set notions of growth.
Implement a knowledge sharing system
Implementing a knowledge sharing system can ensure that your employees are continually learning and growing. One of the main reasons why employees quit their jobs is the lack of learning. This is something that you can combat with ease by offering at least 1-2 hours of learning content for your employees per week.
Make sure your employees stay excited about the organization’s growth
By always keeping your employees in the loop about the next big thing, you can make sure that they are always excited and engaged. This will not only improve their performance on their projects, but also make sure that they volunteer for more projects related to the growth opportunities you share with them.
Make your company values more actionable
Every organization has its own set of values that it hopes to adhere to. While founders may have specific visions in mind regarding those values, it can be challenging for employees to identify with them and live up to them in a way that is quantifiable. A great way to bridge the gap is by assigning values to employees at random and asking them to reflect the same in their work. At the end of the month, you can announce the employee that best exemplified ‘innovation’ or ‘integrity’. Not only will this help you engage your employees, but it will also go a long way in constructing a more cohesive work culture.
Celebrate team and individual achievements
By appreciating team and individual efforts for large and small achievements, you can have positive impacts on employee engagement. Moreover, this is a great way when it comes to boosting morale to ensure that motivation levels on the floor stay up. It is also a great way to promote light and healthy competition amongst teams, without taking the competitive spirit too far.
Encourage office sports and weekend activities
Many organizations have their own in-house sports teams that get together on the weekends and play with each other. This promotes team spirit and a sense of togetherness among team members that ultimately translates to better team performances on projects, more accountability, and even better delegation of tasks. Office retreats and team dinners are another way to encourage bonding between individuals.
Create a 360 degree feedback channel
While employees receive regular feedback on their performance, very few managers receive the same regarding their leadership skills from the people they are leading. By letting employees voice their concerns about management styles, you can ensure that the culture you create is more transparent, and filled with engaged employees who feel like an active part of the organization’s growth.
