Many factors contribute to a company’s success. For a company to be successful and profitable, it needs to sell great products, offer amazing customer service, and have loyal customers. But above all else, a successful business needs to have a team of highly engaged employees.
Unfortunately, engagement at a lot of businesses is at an all-time low across all industries, with only 36% of employees engaged in the workplace. If you have a low engagement at your place of work as well, that needs to change right away if you’re hoping for long-term success.
Training and personal development for employees
Most employees put a lot of focus on professional development. While that is significant, if you want your employees to feel like they’re appreciated, you also need to encourage personal development. To do that, you should get to know all team members on a personal level.
Find out what they like to do outside of work, what are their hobbies and interests, and what they’re passionate about. Once you know that, you will be able to deduce which areas of business each employee is best suited for based on those interests and aspirations.
This type of personal connection will also help you identify the types of training programs that would fit their interests and help them acquire new skills that will bring them greater professional satisfaction.
One of the best ways you can get to know your employees better is to organize a lunch and learn program and Hoppier explains this concept in great detail. During a lunch and learn, an employer takes their entire team to a paid lunch where they can discuss professional and personal topics and work on team building and bonding.
Use the right tools
In this digital age, employers who don’t use all the available tools and software to help their employees aren’t only hindering their engagement but they’re also stifling productivity. There are a plethora of tools that can make workers more productive and successful and make their overall jobs much easier.
If you’re not already using tools, research the types of software you believe would make your employee’s day-to-day activities easier. Make sure to talk to the employees as well to help them understand how these tools work and see if there are any programs they want to see incorporated.
Additionally, make sure to use a tool that will be useful for people from all departments, no matter what kind of responsibilities they have. One such tool is multi user WhatsApp, which allows multiple teams to manage WhatsApp Business together from one platform. This way, you can help multiple customers at the same time and even collaborate with colleagues on incoming conversations.
Create a non-toxic workspace
Do your team members constantly feel like they’re walking on eggshells? Or that if they make even one tiny mistake they’re going to get seriously reprimanded? If the answer is yes, then you have a very toxic workspace and are making your employees function in an unhealthy environment.
One of the most popular management techniques is belittling and punishing employees that make mistakes or slip-ups, but this is a very bad approach. It makes workers think that no matter how much they try, management will never be happy and satisfied with the results.
Another example of a toxic workspace is one where employees aren’t being recognized for their hard work. If you don’t show appreciation, they won’t have any motivation or drive to excel at their job.
A lack of recognition leads to disengagement, so make sure to always celebrate hard work. As much as 58% of employees who left a job due to culture claim managers are the main reason they left, so a toxic workspace with bad culture is contributing to employee turnover.
It’s a manager’s job to encourage employees and show them how to fix their mistakes, to always recognize and even reward hard work, as well as use the phrases good managers say regularly. If you create a work environment where everyone feels safe and appreciated, engagement will skyrocket.
Encourage employee creativity
Repetitive routines are incredibly boring, but they’re also a part of many jobs. If you ask your employees to strictly follow a rigid routine for every task they perform, they won’t feel very engaged. Keep in mind that the final product is the only thing that matters, not how people reach that final product.
So there’s no harm in allowing team members to be as creative as they want in their approach to usually mundane tasks. When you encourage this type of individual creativity, employees will feel motivated to find new and fun ways to perform tasks and get all of their work done in record time.
Allowing creative freedom in the workplace allows for professional development since you’re pushing your employees to think outside the box and find creative solutions to every problem that arises.
Final thoughts
An engaged employee is a happy employee. If you do your best to keep your team members highly engaged and satisfied with their jobs, you can be sure that you will have low employee turnover and high profits. And if you apply the strategies you just read about, you won’t have any issues keeping engagement at an all-time high.
