Re-imagining the way you engage your employees

If you want your company to thrive, it is crucial for you to identify as well as understand the facets that both establish and sustain a high level of employee engagement.

As the global organizations stumble towards a market healing from covid-19, experts have anticipated a surge of voluntary employee departures, baptized as the Great Resignation. A study conducted in 2021 estimated that 55% of the US workforce intends to look for a new opportunity in the next 12 months. Shocking, isn’t it? Well, to counteract this incoming wave of employee turnover, organizations – more than ever – need to focus on cultivating employee engagement. Leaders have to re-imagine the ways and take proactive steps to enrich the employee engagement, or risk losing their workforce! 

Businesses have been getting disrupted left, right and center. Exponential digitalization, a new performance management approach, agile ways of working, and regulation are resulting in a consistent change in the ways organizations operate. This new way of working has brought with it some valuable lessons about boosting employee engagement that should be prioritized in this “new normal.” A report published by Gallup in June reported that only 31% of the employees felt that they were engaged with their organization and with the recent necessity around enriching employee engagement, this figure has skyrocketed to 40%. This backs the fact that having earmarked emphasis towards employee engagement has become more important than ever.

In the current times, employee engagement is NOT about free snacks, ping pong tables, a high salary and merely thanking them after a long day of work. It’s about cultivating a culture where employees get engaged and consequently, thrive. An engaged employee is one who believes and understands the direction in which the organization is driving towards. Moreover, such employees have a comprehensive understanding of how their roles and efforts contribute to the purpose, mission, and objectives of the organization. 

More often than not, employee engagement is based on four pillars and can be presumed as a measurement to which an employee:

•Feels committed to the organization

•Identifies with the organizational vision and mission

•Is satisfied with their roles and responsibilities

•Feels motivated in the work culture

The evidence is crystal clear – engaged employees experience less burnout, stay in the organization longer and perform better. 

Why does an organization need engaged employees?

Engaged employees foster better, stronger, and more resilient organizations in three key manners:

•As a result of having a better understanding, they make better decisions for the organization and its clients. 

•They are more productive as they have a better understanding of what they have to do and how it contributes to the ultimate organizational objective.

•They innovate more as they deeply want their organization to achieve all of its priorities and objectives. 

Therefore, It is very crucial for leaders to ensure that their employees feel affiliated with the organization’s overall mission, value, and purpose, realizing how they contribute to the recovery and growth of the organization. Your employee engagement strategy has the prospect of transforming your organization and its culture to the one in which the employees will be proud and motivated to give their best. After all, your employees are the most indispensable assets for your organization, isn’t it? 

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In the face of adversity, an engaged workforce will strive to give their best to the organizations they feel connected and supported by. An organization that has engaged employees at its base not only survives in the market but thrives in the future as well. 

Re-imagining the way you engage your employees.

Having made you familiar with the shift in the methods of employee engagement, we will now look at a few steps that will help you in boosting employee engagement in your organization in this new normal : 

1) Find a balance between the organization’s with employee values

If your organization only focuses on becoming the leaders of the industry and nothing more, then you should consider revising it as soon as possible. Just having this aspiration as the sole objective will not correspond with the employees’ goals and values – which are generally about the individual aspiration and not just the organization’s.  If you have a blend of the employees and the organization’s aspirations, it will be easier for the employees to align their values and goals with the mission of the organization, thereby making them feel that they fit in. Having such an alignment ensures that the employees are engaged progress collectively towards achieving the bigger picture.

2) Show how the employee’s contribution impacts the organization’s purpose and success

Just having a purposeful mission will not be adequate to establish a sense of value alignment. Employees tend to flourish when they see a connection between their day-to-day tasks and the greater purpose of the organization. Research by McKinsey suggests that immersive and small-group sessions are efficacious at helping employees align their objectives with the broader mission of the organization. No wonder, the world witnessed an already very prominent agile goal-setting approach of OKR (Objectives and Key Results) multiply its fame and users ever since remote and collaborative workforce became a necessity. 

3) Grant your employees more autonomy

Autonomy is crucial to stimulating intrinsic encouragement. For instance, Netflix makes their employees operate in a “no rule” work culture – characterized by a high degree of employee freedom as well as responsibility. Employees are given the freedom to make strategic decisions that are in the best interest of Netflix that doesn’t involve managerial oversight and seeking of pre-approvals for reimbursements. The environment of no rules is sustained through high levels of responsibility which implicates all employees questioning the actions of others. Now the level of autonomy suitable for organisations can differ based on maturity, but moving in that direction can help the organization to innovate and grow at the same time.

4) Development and growth opportunities –

A consistent driver of employee engagement throughout the pandemic was their desire to develop and grow. Regardless of the external elements, employees have a desire to grow and learn professionally – either vertically or within the boundaries of their current role. Ever since the technological advancement and pandemic, employees have become more determined to consistently grow and improve to gain more control of the professional steering of their destiny. Employees feel supported in their desire for development and growth when they get an appropriate level of involvement in the decision-making process and overall empowerment in their role. You should also ensure that employees get clearly communicated expectations from the leader along with an open environment to chew over these expectations.

When the environment and ways of working are continuing to change rapidly, it has become more than crucial for organizations to adapt to the new normal. Agile performance management tools have been in the buzz for quite some time and rightly so – they ensure to take your employee engagement to a new level altogether. Contact us today if you want to enhance employee engagement for your organization!