Employee engagement is what makes employees feel valued and connected to your business. The more valued your employees feel, the more likely they are to contribute positively to the workplace.
In fact, employee engagement, performance and productivity are 14% higher in businesses with recognition programmes.
These employees are more likely to work harder and motivate others to do the same. This is why positive employee engagement is so important. But, how can you improve employee engagement? Keep reading to find out!
What is the Meaning of Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement refers to how committed an employee is to their workplace. Employee engagement can be demonstrated through many ways, such as:
- Motivation
- Passion
- Understanding
- Emotional connection
- Inclusion
High employee engagement means that they are committed to meeting their goals and helping the business thrive.
Why is Employee Engagement Important?
Employee engagement is important for all businesses because it helps to create a better work culture, increase productivity, improve work and customer relationships and reduce staff turnover.
Working is a big part of many people's lives, which is why it is important to make it as enjoyable and welcoming as possible. Employees who enjoy coming to work are more likely to work harder and provide excellent customer service.
Did you know that companies with highly engaged employees are 21% more profitable than businesses that don’t? (According to Gallups report.)
What is Low Employee Engagement?
Low employee engagement can have a negative impact on your business as a whole. This is because low employee engagement is when employees feel neglected and not emotionally connected to their workplace.
When this happens, employee motivation can drastically decrease, which means that they tend to be less productive and less likely to stay with your business.
Not only does this affect employees, but it can also affect customer satisfaction.
If an employee is not motivated at work, then they won’t work to the best of their ability, which can have a negative knock-on effect on the rest of the business.
But how can you identify employees with bad employee engagement? Here are common indicators to look out for:
1: Decreased Motivation
When employees have low engagement levels, their motivation is more likely to drop. This is because when employees don’t feel happy at work, their work performance is negatively reflected.
2: Low Morale
Morale refers to how your employees feel at work. When employee morale is high, employees are more likely to feel happy and appreciated.
However, if an employee's morale is low, this means that they are unhappy at work and think poorly of their work.
3: Decreased Employee Satisfaction
Decreased employee satisfaction occurs when an employee is unhappy at their job. This can be due to many things, such as poor management, long working hours, or lack of career advancement.
4: Lack of Work
When employees have poor engagement with their workplace, then they are less likely to produce high-quality work. Employees need motivation to produce an acceptable amount of work.
5: Negative attitude
Finally, employees with a negative attitude usually show poor engagement to their workplace.
This could be because they are unhappy at work. It is important to identify the reason behind your employee's negative attitude so you can resolve the issue.
It is important that you are successfully able to identify poor employee engagement so you can do something about it and improve employee engagement.
How Can You Improve Employee Engagement?
If you feel like your employees are lacking motivation, then you could benefit from improving employee engagement.
Did you know only 15% of employees are engaged in the workplace? (According to Gallup).
If this sounds like your workplace, don’t worry – we are here to help you. Here are five ways you can improve employee engagement:
1: Incorporate Small Breaks
One of the main reasons behind poor employee engagement is long working hours. Working too long without any breaks can decrease productivity and motivation and cause employees to lose focus.
Incorporating regular breaks into your workplace can improve motivation and encourage a more productive working environment.
2: Recognition
When employees produce work, it is important that you recognise what they are doing well and praise them for it.
Sometimes employees can lose motivation when producing amounts of work and receiving no recognition or praise.
To improve your employee’s motivation, make sure that they understand the importance and benefits that their work has on your business.
This way employees will feel valued and more motivated to produce high-quality work for your company.
3: Encourage Feedback
Regular meetings and 1-1 sessions are important as they allow employees to discuss how they feel, what they are happy with and things they think could be improved on.
Encouraging feedback allows employees to feel valued and heard. Make sure that you also provide safe spaces for employees to talk to you about any concerns or questions they may have.
4: Prioritise Employee Wellbeing
Stress and mental health are higher now more than ever. In fact, 80% of employees report feeling stressed due to work! This is why it is so important to reduce work-related stress by:
- Encouraging time management
- Incorporating regular breaks or downtime from screens
- Offer flexible work arrangements if possible, such as hybrid working (allowing employees to work from home or from the office)
- Provide mental health resources
- Encourage a healthy work-life balance
- Help employees identify stressors
- Encourage communication
- Offer support
Prioritising employee wellbeing allows employees to feel heard. They will appreciate that you are there to help them and offer your support when needed.
5: Create a Positive Work Environment
The average employee works around 253 days a year, which is why it is important to create a positive work environment. You can do this by:
- Supporting learning
- Checking in with your team regularly
- Encouraging diversity
How Can You Measure Employee Engagement?
Now that you have a better understanding of how you can improve employee engagement, let’s explore how you can measure it:
- Regular employee surveys: Aim to complete these monthly or annually.
- Employee net promoter score (eNPS): A metric that measures how likely an employee is to recommend their workplace.
- Calculate the absenteeism rate: To do this divide the number of unexcused absences over a certain amount of time by the total number of workdays then multiply the result by 100. A good absenteeism rate is usually around 1.5%.
These are all great ways to better understand your employees and their commitment and motivation towards their workplace.
Key Takeaways
Now you should have a better understanding of what employee engagement is, how you can improve it and how to measure it.
If you still feel as though you will struggle to remember everything discussed in this blog, here are some key takeaways:
- Employee engagement is what makes employees feel valued and connected to your business.
- Companies with highly engaged employees are 21% more profitable compared to other businesses.
- You can measure employee engagement through surveys, absenteeism rates and employee net promoter scores
- Signs of low employee engagement include a lack of motivation, low morale, lack of work productivity and negative attitudes.
- Improve employee engagement by incorporating regular breaks, encouraging feedback and creating a positive work environment.
Remember, don’t worry if your employee engagement is low because there are always ways that you can improve this!
Keep Everyone Happy at Work With MaxContacts Workforce Management
Here at MaxContact, we offer a wide range of services including our workplace management software.
If you’re looking to improve customer experience, streamline processes and cut costs without compromise, then a workforce management system is for you.
This helps to increase employee satisfaction, reduces employee retention and in turn reduces recruitment costs.
You can be sure that you are staffing appropriately and not spending more than is needed on additional staff, all whilst keeping customers happy.
For more information on our workforce management software or to speak to a member of our team, don’t hesitate to contact us today. We are more than happy to help.
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