Happy staff = hefty rewards for your business. Employee engagement strategies are proven to improve productivity, increase customer retention rates, reduce staff turnover and make your business more profitable.
Many managers don’t know the best ways to engage their staff, however. Improving employee engagement to drive business performance is more than just buying your team a round at Friday drinks, for instance.
Once you’ve found the best employees for the job you need to have employee engagement strategies in place to get the best out of them.
Here are 5 simple actions that will help to improve staff satisfaction in your workplace.
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There is no bigger killer to employee motivation than faulty equipment or processes that don’t make sense. Old computer systems can be a big time-waster and drain on your employees’ energy, for example.
Good equipment and processes are even more important if you have staff working remotely.
Listen to your staff’s input on business processes. They are the ones living the reality of that process and can advise on ways to finetune it. Help them feel empowered and improve overall efficiency by consulting with the people using the process. With a system such as The H Factor, you can harness that knowledge and keep it readily accessible for all.
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You are proud of your business and want it to succeed but at some point you have to relinquish control. Your employees will feel more motivated if they feel you trust them to do the job you’ve hired them to do.
Timely feedback leads to better performance. Set up performance outcomes for each staff member, let them know what your business plan is and meet with them 1-on-1 regularly to see how you can support them.
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The best reward you can give your employees is to invest in their career development. We are ready to assist businesses as accredited users of the Glow Up Careers, a career coaching platform.
Businesses that train and upskill their staff attract the best talent and keep employees more passionate, motivated and focused on their career.
A poll by Louis Harris and Associates found that 41% of employees with poor career development opportunities were planning to leave their job within a year. In contrast, only 12% of employees with excellent company training in place wanted to leave their job.
Do you know the signs that a staff member is thinking about leaving?
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Teamwork makes the dream work. In-house rivalries within a team can soon turn your workplace culture toxic. While some employees might thrive with a bit of healthy competition, others will disengage completely.
Do you know how to achieve a collaborative team enviornment?
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A carefully executed employee satisfaction survey will help you identify the main threats to your staff motivation. You can then source practical solutions to improve your team’s engagement at work.
Here are some examples of some of the questions you might ask in a staff survey:
Once you’ve established a baseline employee satisfaction metric, you can track the progress of your strategy as you go with follow-up surveys. We help businesses gauge the levers affecting their employee engagement with Spidergap 360 degree feedback surveys.
Businesses simply can’t afford to not have employee engagement strategies in place. Poorly motivated staff can cost your business in productivity, staff turnover rates and profits. Invest in your people and they will reward you tenfold.
Check out this article for 65 more practical ideas. You can start today!
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Susan Rochester has been managing director of Balance at Work since 2006. Susan has a natural tendency to balance analytical thinking with an optimistic outlook to set direction and solve problems. She is an effective facilitator and constantly creates new and more effective ways of doing things, motivated by helping others to achieve their goals.