Increasing Employee Engagement

‍This recent piece from The Business Journals highlights the strong correlation between companies with high employee engagement and high levels of success. 

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As the authors note, not only will employees who are engaged with their work be more productive and get better results, but disengaged employees will actually have a negative impact on companies’ bottom lines, with a recent Gallup poll showing a net global economic loss of about 8.8 billion dollars stemming directly from employee disengagement.

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In order to increase employee engagement, the article recommends 3 potential tactics: creating open lines of communication, adapting the work environment to meet the shifting employee needs and expectations that are revealed through those open communication lines, and measuring the effectiveness of your efforts before then sharing those findings with your employees.

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Open Communication

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One of the quickest ways to ensure your employees disengage is to keep them out of the loop and not reveal to them the complete picture of what the company is trying to achieve as well as how each employee's efforts fit into that grander scheme. 

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In order to properly do their jobs, employees will need access to certain tactical information. Employees will also need to receive feedback regarding how well they are functioning in their specific role, of course.

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In order to be fully engaged with their work, however, employees often want to see beyond the relatively narrow scope of their own duties in order to both feel more invested in the larger mission and to self-correct their own performance and output more in-line with system-wide goals. 

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Take Action In Response To Feedback

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To mine value from the open communication lines with employees, employers and managers must not only listen to and understand the feedback being provided, but they must also act on that information in order to shape the work environment in a way that better encourages employee engagement.

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Making tangible adjustments based on feedback received also further encourages more and better feedback in a positive feedback cycle of engagement.

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While there is no one single path toward building a more engaged culture in the workplace and some creativity is typically required to better capture the attention and focus of your own particular employee pool, the article does recommend several potential courses of action to consider, including rewards program updates, improved training/development opportunities, clearer metrics/targets, and offering additional work flexibility. 

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Celebrate Positive Outcomes

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Once open lines of communication between managers and employees have been established, it is important to then share with employees the way that managers are interpreting the feedback that they are receiving, and to specify then how those interpretations are driving the changes being implemented in pursuit of better employee engagement.

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By highlighting the adjustments being made and the reasons for doing so, in addition to defining desirable outcomes sought from making those adjustments, employers and managers have the opportunity to reinforce those open communication lines and to showcase the positive outcomes that the team is able to achieve, which further solidifies engagement, as well. 

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You can read more about this topic here.