Employee Engagement
What are you doing to keep your employees? Are your employees engaged? Are they in it for the long haul? Or, are they just putting in time?
Communication is the key to keeping employees engaged and motivated in the workplace. By keeping the lines of communication open and well established you prevent much of the negativity or unproductive behaviour often associated with disengaged employees.
The benefits of engaged employees are:
- · employees are more committed to the organization
- work is more productive
- company is more profitable
- company is better able to provide superior customer service
- workplace is a more safety conscious environment
- actions of employees are more likely to encourage other employees to want to do great work
- company becomes more attractive as a workplace
The following tips will provide you with some strategies to help keep your employees engaged in the workplace:
- Keep managers and supervisors well informed.
- Encourage employees to approach managers and supervisors with ideas, concerns and questions.
- Let employees know what is happening in the company by including them in strategic planning and key decisions.
- Place bulletin boards in lunchrooms.
- Encourage staff to use employee suggestion boxes that can be anonymous, are regularly checked and responded to in a positive way.
- Use employee surveys to find out what staff think and create actions based on the results.
- Hold regular staff meetings with opportunity for employees to be heard.
- Hold quick meetings to communicate new developments and address issues or concerns as they arise within a work unit.
- Have clear job description for each employee to ensure there is a clear understanding of the job requirements.
- Be sure to provide regular feedback about job performance – both jobs well done and areas for improvement. You may want to use a performance evaluation form.
- Take time to show employees that their contributions have not gone unnoticed and that you appreciate their efforts.
- Plan staff social events that foster relationship building amongst staff and management.
- Encourage and support staff participation in community events.
- Avoid creating and enforcing unnecessary rules.
- Create processes that avoid creating conflict amongst employees and unnecessary competition.
- Look for ways to support the need to have a balanced work/life schedule.
These helpful tips were found in the HR Toolkit found on the Nova Scotia Works, Workplace Initiatives page. You should check it out too!