Most companies want loyal, dedicated, hard-working employees who come into work every morning eager to excel at their jobs. What many fail to acknowledge, though, is the importance of employee engagement on fostering a workplace where team members feel valued.
According to Forbes, employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals. Simply put, it’s an attempt to measure the degree to which employees care about their work and the companies they work for. After all, employees are more likely to succeed in jobs that bring meaning to their work.
Here are five actions you can take as a manager to improve and emphasize the importance of employee engagement in your workplace.
Become Engaged Yourself
A Gallup survey found that about one-third of employees love their jobs and are engaged at work. On the other end, 16% of employees are actively disengaged — they’re miserable in the workplace and may be undermining what the most engaged employees are building. The remaining 51% of employees are neither engaged nor miserable — they’re just “there.”
Disengaged employees show up, put in their hours, do the minimum amount required to keep their jobs, and go home feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. The best way to emphasize the importance of employee engagement, then, is to lead by example and become engaged yourself.
It’s one thing to be able to recite the mission, vision, and value statements of the company, but it’s another to live them. Become authentic in the way you lead by living the mission, vision, and values and interpreting them into your everyday language about what each of you does.
Know Your Team Members
Engaged employees don’t feel like they must choose between work and life. As a manager, you can engage your employees by supporting them as individuals — not just as employees. Find out what motivates them, what their interests are outside of work, what they’re passionate about, and what expertise they bring to the job.
The importance of employee engagement extends beyond simply motivating an employee to do his or her job. Rather, it’s about getting your team excited to come to work everyday, getting them to ask questions, share feedback, and really look forward to growing in their roles.
Increase & Improve Your Communication
If your employees aren’t hearing from you regularly, they may assume you’ve forgotten about them. Most of us want to improve, and consistent, meaningful communication allows you to both give and welcome personal feedback, shows your employees you value them, and stresses the importance of employee engagement.
Give your employees the same benefit of the doubt that you give yourself every day and assume they want to perform well. We hold employees back by not providing critical information to let them know how to improve and remind them that we know they exist.
Plan for Success
Employees know when the organization is just drifting along, so engage the team in planning for strategic initiatives. Let them see how the team helps to improve the company and work toward its mission and vision. By engaging them in the plans, you get buy-in and commitment toward measurable goals and action steps.
As a manager with a plan, you can see clearly how to support each team member. Further, working together to develop a plan illustrates the importance of employee engagement while allowing you to model accountability for your own mistakes and foster a mutually accountable team that both succeeds and fails together.
Invest in Team Member Development
Demonstrate your commitment to your employees and the importance of employee engagement with a written development plan designed by and in collaboration with each team member. This may be in the form of training or certifications.
At the same time, many people find challenging work assignments and work experiences even more meaningful. Allow employees to measure their own success with measurable and attainable development goals.
Generic programs and enthusiastic, motivational speakers may keep us engaged for a day or two, but the real key to emphasizing the importance of employee engagement is a manager who prioritizes his or her team and actively moves the engagement meter every day.
Contact us today to discuss ways to increase your company’s employee engagement.