Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace report found that only 21% of employees are engaged at work, costing the global economy $7.8 trillion annually.
Your employees’ everyday actions and decisions impact your business and company morale. Companies that make an active effort to engage employees achieve better business outcomes, reduce attrition, and create a more positive workplace for everyone. With so much at stake, many companies are looking into how to increase employee engagement.
What drives employee engagement?
Employee engagement isn’t just “an HR thing.” It’s also an important responsibility for managers. In addition to making sure that their direct reports have the information, tools, and training necessary to do what needs to be done, effective people managers must make a regular ongoing effort to keep their employees engaged. But what’s the best way to engage employees?
According to Gallup, these five key factors increase employee engagement:
- Purpose
- Development
- A caring manager
- Ongoing conversations
- A focus on strengths
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5 Ways to Increase Employee Engagement
If you’re looking for ways of increasing employee engagement, look no further. These five tactics have been specially chosen to support the five key factors that increase employee engagement.
1. Invest in onboarding.
According to some statistics, over 50% of new employees decide within their first two weeks on the job whether they plan to stay with the company long term. Therefore, it’s imperative to invest in a top-notch onboarding process that immediately builds an emotional connection to the company and the employee’s new role. A successful onboarding process is an essential tool to engage employees and keep them engaged over the long haul. As an added benefit, employees who have a positive and thorough onboarding process can start making meaningful contributions in their new roles much sooner than those who don’t.
2. Have regular coaching sessions.
Traditional and infrequent performance reviews are most effective with underperforming employees who face potential consequences for not improving their performance—performance reviews are outdated and do little to develop talent. If you’re looking into how to increase employee engagement, regular one-to-one coaching sessions are a better choice—and they address all of Gallup’s key factors for increasing employee engagement.
Tommy Jester, Director of Sales (North America) at Aircall has seen the effects of one-to-one coaching firsthand. He says, “People are motivated when they feel empowered, heard, and cared for. You have to put people first. If they feel you’re genuinely interested in their growth and development, they’ll be extremely motivated to work hard."
3. Create a transparent culture.
A workplace culture in which information is shared freely and openly between management and employees, issues are openly discussed, candid feedback is exchanged, and managers lead by example has been shown to:
- Increase employee commitment
- Increase employee engagement
- Improve performance
- Improve customer relations
Check out this article for tips on how to increase transparency in your company or department.
4. Invest in employees’ well-being.
Employees with a good sense of well-being are less likely to be preoccupied with mental or physical health issues. Providing discounted gym memberships, wellness apps, employee assistance programs, and healthy snacks are only part of the picture. Increasing employee engagement by looking after their well-being means encouraging a healthy work/life balance and providing mental health days with no questions asked. Offering these benefits signals that the company cares about its employees even outside of work, which makes them more likely to feel valued—and more likely to be engaged at work. Additionally, offering flexible scheduling options and implementing 24 hour schedule ideas can be instrumental in helping employees achieve that balance.
5. Celebrate success often.
Celebrating success in daily operations acts as a barometer of current performance while boosting employees’ moods and motivation—and reinforcing your efforts to improve company culture. Things like leaderboards, instant notifications, and challenges are fantastic ways to recognize everyone’s small wins—not just the big wins common among the top performers. Taking it a step further with gamification can increase employee engagement by adding an element of fun to the workday. Research has shown that employees working in a gamified environment are 89% happier than those who don’t—and 69% say they’d stay with an employer for longer than three years if gamification were part of the daily operations. That’s a pretty strong case for gamification!
If you’re curious about gamification, this article is a great introduction to the science of gamification and how to incorporate it into your workplace.
Plecto Can Help You Increase Employee Engagement
Plecto makes it easy to set up employee engagement dashboards using real-time data. These can be a great starting point for coaching sessions. Setting up similar departmental and company dashboards can create greater workplace transparency while increasing employee engagement and feelings of ownership.
Plecto also provides built-in gamification features, including leaderboards, points, and badges that make it easy to adopt this proven method of improving employee engagement.
Sign up for a free 14-day trial and discover how Plecto can help you increase employee engagement.
