How to Improve Employee Engagement in the Workplace [11 Effective Ways]

The past few years since 2020 saw tectonic shifts in workplace culture and employee attitude. With remote work becoming a norm, or rather the only way out during emergencies, it is more challenging for companies to keep up with their employees’ needs and expectations.

Above all, companies must constantly strive to keep employees satisfied without letting them lose motivation. For these reasons, companies have dedicated teams, tools, and services to help them develop employee engagement strategies.

Is it really worth investing in employee engagement? Does it yield consistent returns in the long term?

We will have these answers when we see why employee engagement is important and how to improve employee engagement and retention.

What is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement refers to how involved employees are toward their work goals and their company’s vision and mission. More than monetary benefits, their commitment to these goals is crucial in defining their longevity in a company. From the company’s perspective, long-lasting, adaptive, and engaged employees mean lesser turnover and thus, lesser hiring costs.

However, different employees can exhibit engagement in layers, some actively engaged, some neutral and the rest actively disengaged. We have a detailed insight into how an employee must be engaged physically, emotionally, and cognitively with the company to obtain maximum benefits for both.

While a handful of actively engaged employees can boost a company’s performance, even one or two disengaged employees can pull down a team’s collective spirit.

Similarly, companies that fail to align their policies with the collective interests of their employees can see a looming situation like The Great Resignation.

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Did you know that adequate levels of employee alignment with a company’s mission leads to 32% less turnover and a 15% improvement in productivity?

For an outsider, an employee’s relationship with his/her company directly reflects the company’s core values. An employee's attachment to a company is a sign of trust for customers to use their products and services.

An engaged employee never speaks of changing jobs or switching careers, as they get a sense of fulfillment when working in their company. Fulfilling needs does not stop with apt rewards and remunerations.

For instance, companies providing adequate childcare supportsaw fewer turnovers and reduced costs. This provision came as a result of massive resignations and job switching owing to flexible childcare options.

Similarly, companies providing transportation facilities or reimbursements can help employees slowly come out of the remote work bubble.

So, keeping employees engaged with their company involves understanding their needs and requirements on various levels over time.

11 Effective Ways to Improve Employee Engagement

Now that we know why workforce engagement is crucial and how engaging employees reduces turnover, we will address how to improve employee engagement in an organization.

Just like how employees are engaged at different levels within a company, promoting overall employee engagement within a company requires several levels of effort.

Stick to Your Mission-Vision Statement

A company exists for the purpose for which it was founded. The stronger a company's mission, vision, and purpose, the longer it lasts. This longevity lies in the quality of its products and services, which are the result of the toils of several employees.

It is not sufficient that only the company’s founding members know about the mission and vision. All employees, from the highest to the grassroots level, must be proud of how their work impacts their company’s brand value.

This brand is built with consistent adherence to core values set up by the company. When new employees see this adherence to core values, they are automatically motivated to contribute to the growth of the company.

However, when they see even one team member being demotivated, speaking of quick fixes to “get things done somehow,” etc., it can lower their spirits. So, it is important to consistently encourage and monitor employees to follow core workplace ethics.

Conduct Interactive Workshops and Training sessions

Right from the time when an employee joins a company, it is important to have periodic sessions to refresh their knowledge on various topics. For instance, generic sessions on payroll queries or team-level interactions on addressing new errors can help employees learn something new every time.

Such sessions can be short and crisp, more like a knowledge transfer. This ensures that no task gets bottlenecked with one employee working in a team. Anyone working on a new tool can teach their team members about it.

Similarly, company-level sessions help employees get to know the POCs they can reach out to for queries pertaining to leaves, work policies, payrolls, referrals, etc. These sessions can be online or offline and include a quiz at the end.

From an employee’s perspective, such sessions show how concerned their leaders are about equipping them with all the required information. With the right training, employees will feel a sense of purpose in their work.

Encourage Regular Team Bonding Activities

Whether your teams work at the office or are scattered across different remote locations, it is mandatory to let them connect on a regular basis. Undoubtedly, paycheques are the reason why employees work. But to stay longer with a company, employees seek a purpose beyond their paycheques.

Here is where the concept of an extended family comes in the form of a workplace team. A recent study shows that 44.4% of full-time employees spend around 31 hours a week with their workplace colleagues. Ideally, one spends twice the amount of time with their colleagues than what they do with their family members.

A healthy team can do wonders to improve an employee’s competence and a company’s profits. Team-building and team-bonding activities give employees a reason to come to work and get along with each other.

Offer Rewards and Recognition at Different Levels

An employee’s need in addition to their paycheques would definitely be timely recognition any day. Small or big, any recognition can instantly uplift the spirits of employees.

Any small deliverable within a team that meets a target can be instantly rewarded. Honoring the members behind the success and discussing how they overcame challenges can motivate all the team members.

Similarly, honoring all team members for greater success at the organizational level can provide company-wide recognition for employees. After all, who does not want to be in the limelight when given a chance?

Companies must ensure that rewards at different levels are fairly priced and valuable for the employee. According to the level of achievement, cash rewards, coupons, vouchers, travel trips, etc., can be given.

Implement Diversity and Inclusion

Employees engage when they find a sense of inclusion or belongingness within a company.

So, when do employees feel they belong in a particular team or company?

When employees find more employees like them!

Employees may look for people from their own gender, ethnicity, educational background, speak their language, etc.

Does that mean companies must hire people belonging to only one kind? Not at all.

All around the world, companies are striving to follow inclusive employment policies. Companies also have strict policies against discrimination based on color, ethnicity, language, gender, etc. Also, top leadership roles are no longer offered based on a particular gender or ethnicity.

When employees find that the company is not just for one kind and is highly inclusive, they try to bring in more referrals who are willing to stay for a better future.

Employee Wellness Initiatives

Employees feel valued when their company looks after their well-being and their dependents. Companies must come up with comprehensive wellness programs that help employees assess their physical and mental health on a periodic basis.

It is no wonder that work-life can take a toll on physical health and mostly mental health. Companies have dedicated teams and partners that help employees pause and work on rejuvenation activities during or after their working hours.

Most companies offer Annual Health check programs. Screening tests are part of such packages that help employees detect the early onset of conditions like diabetes, hypertension, etc., which can be transformed smoothly with lifestyle changes. Likewise, companies have an in-house therapist or a partnering psychologist to help employees have anonymous sessions to talk about and resolve their workplace grievances.

Celebrating occasions like “Bring your family to work,” “Father’s Day,” “Daughter’s Day,” “Mother’s Day,” etc. can help employees connect better with others’ family members.

Opportunities for Career Re-evaluation or Restart

Many times employees find themselves at a crossroads in their career trajectory. A career crisis can occur, which makes employees rethink their career choices. The natural tendency in such cases is to resign and move towards a different path.

For such reasons, companies can provide educational or upskilling courses through an online portal to help employees learn more, depending on their interests. These interests could relate to the domain where they are working or a different domain of their interest.

Upon completion of a course, employees can be given opportunities to switch to a suitable role within the same organization or sister concern. Such measures show employees that companies value their abilities and are ready to invest in their additional skill enhancement.

Also, an unforeseen sabbatical must not be a reason for an employee to be fired from a company. Rather, they must be given adequate time to upskill and get back from where they left off.

Creating Recreational Spaces at Workplaces

Employees working from an office on a regular basis seek a holistic environment to motivate them and make their travel to their workplace worthwhile. Peaceful pantry spaces, quirky gazebo areas, indoor play areas, etc. can help teams take short breaks from their hectic schedules and unwind over a hot cup of coffee or tea.

A case study shows that 71% of employees are satisfied with their organization after the addition of recreational activities. Employee participation in such recreational activities, like chess or billiards, has been shown to boost productivity over time.

A lot of companies provide free beverages, designated closed smoking zones and walking tracks, state-of-the-art gymnasiums, badminton courts, foosball stands, indoor arcade gaming arenas, and many more facilities. In fact, such amenities are becoming highlights for people working in hectic workplaces to make a leap to those companies providing such facilities.

However, recreational facilities are just an icing on the cake. Do remember to have your base, aka, your employee’s job roles well defined and then focus on the perks.

Periodic Communication Between Employees and Higher Management

Organizational hierarchy and the leadership roles at each level show the roles and responsibilities fulfilled by each member. Occasional communication between employees and leaders at each level in the hierarchy shows the transparency within a company and its employees.

Most companies have an HR business partner associated with every group or part that significantly contributes to the company’s finances. Each part, in turn, has several teams and sub-teams with leads for every unit. Such business partners are responsible for facilitating communication between employees and higher management through different channels.

Business workshops, product launch meets, etc., can be great avenues for such interactions and employee feedback.

Additionally, several online channels, wellness surveys, etc., can be used where people can share honest reviews about their workplace experience openly or anonymously, and such results must be published to higher management.

Wellness champions, team-building volunteers, HR friends, etc., are some voluntary roles that employees can take up to facilitate open communication between their team members and the respective SPOCs.

Flexible Working Policies

Did we not initially emphasize that we must adhere to the company’s core policies to maintain long-term retention? Yes, we did. But isn't change the only constant?

Changing your policies over time for the overall betterment of employees’ well-being is definitely a welcome change if you want your employees to be engaged with your company.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw companies that had never seen something as remote or flexible working adopt sudden changes, like permanent remote working roles!

A survey on workplace flexibility shows that 94% of 1000 working professionals in the US prefer flexible working policies, which allow them to decide how much time they wish to spend in the office or whether they can work from home.

Several tools, such as Teams, Slack, Google Workspaces, etc., make remote working possible without any interference. After carefully weighing the pros and cons, if flexible working promotes a positive attitude in your workplace, go ahead and give this small yet significant engagement initiative to your employees.

Keep Up With the Latest Trends Among Employers to Retain Employees

While consistently evaluating your employee engagement initiatives, it is equally important to analyze how your competitors are faring in the same areas. Sometimes, implementing strategies similar to those of your peer organizations can help prevent your employees from moving to supposedly greener pastures.

Furthermore, companies must be on the lookout for workplace challenges that crop up from time to time. Some of the current workplace challenges predicted for the coming work year include the following -

1. Integrating AI tools to boost performance and not replace employee contribution.
2. Creating meaningful job roles that challenge skill sets and let employees consistently improve their proficiency.
3. Adaptive childcare policies to prevent lengthy career breaks among parents, with flexible work hours and evaluation policies.
4. Avoiding blind spots in feedback and recognition.
5. Improved team collaboration to boost hybrid work cultures.

Thus, it has become increasingly important for companies to come up with comprehensive employee engagement initiatives to improve their overall brand value.

Benefits of Improving Employee Engagement

Employee engagement with the company leads to several consequences that can make or break a company’s dream run. Some of the direct impacts of an employee’s positive and active engagement with a company include the following.

1. Higher Retention Rates - A company that is constantly hiring for a particular position shows the level of disengagement in that team or project. Less frequent hiring from a company’s official channels shows the satisfaction levels of current employees.
2. Increased Employee Productivity - When almost all their hierarchy of needs are fulfilled by the organization, employees can fully focus on their work goals and provide high-quality deliverables.
3. Increased Revenue - This is a direct consequence of increased employee productivity. No wonder such employees’ contributions are reflected directly in a company’s profits and vice versa.
4. Reduced Absenteeism - When companies provide employees with several reasons to come to work apart from just meeting targets, who would want to skip a trip to the office?

Improve Engagement to Drive Success

Implementing employee engagement at several levels requires careful analysis and planning. A company’s employee engagement initiatives must go in line with both the organizational goals and vision and employees’ collective interests.

R180’s well-curated employee engagement programs help you create well-crafted initiatives that help to provide a holistic work experience for your employees. Such initiatives are backed by data-driven insights fetched from actual employee and employer feedback.

We provide healthy and competitive team-building and employee engagement initiatives. Furthermore, we will have our team help you analyze existing engagement levels, brainstorm employee development programs, chart wellness initiatives, and focus on areas of improvement.

Get in touch with us today to learn how our AI-assisted solutions can give you results exceeding your expectations.