What is employee engagement?
We talk about it a lot here at Premier Rapport business consulting firm, but rarely stop to explain it. Employees are engaged when they find meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment from their work, or job.
Employee engagement has proven to be beneficial for any organization, as happy employees increase morale, productivity, and customer satisfaction. If you’re looking for ways to provide better quality service to your customer, the solution may be as simple as improving employee engagement.
That’s right—increasing employee engagement may increase customer satisfaction!
Even more than that, you’ll enter a happy workplace with high morale, where work is completed smoothly and coworkers peacefully coexist. Isn’t that priceless?
What causes low employee engagement?
We’ve all experienced low job satisfaction at some point in our careers, however, none of us want to be the owner of that company. If you’re concerned that’s becoming the case for your organization, think back to how you felt during those times.
Why did you feel so dissatisfied with your position?
- Felt faceless, voiceless
- Work was completed then disappeared into a vacuum
- Management harped on about change but nothing ever changed
- Internal issues between coworkers
If at any time you’ve identified with any of these sentiments, then you get it.
Your employees are treated as inconsequential, meaningless, and replaceable. Their work is treated as another line item to cross off, with no real significance or larger function. Your leaders are part of the problem, rather than out seeking a solution.
The team is not operating as a team.
When employees perceive no value to the work, feel that their voice isn’t heard, and see no path forward to advancement, they disengage, and they leave. Thus the correlation between low engagement and high turnover.
How long did you stay in your unsatisfactory role at that dysfunctional organization?
How to increase employee engagement?
Check out our strategies, tips, and ideas to increase employee engagement, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce turnover:
- Premier Rapport business consulting firm can offer your company a roadmap to improving employee engagement with the use of the Predictive Index behavior assessment tool. With this short assessment (2 questions, less than 10 minutes to complete) you and your teams will learn how to work best together, yielding the quality results promised to your clients.
- Clearly outline value of each role to every department and team member, how crucial they are on a daily basis, and demonstrate how key their work is in the overall success of the company.
- Constantly seek—and accept—feedback through the use of anonymous surveys, open forums, or task force discussions. You’re not a mindreader, and we all have blind spots when it comes to our own behavior. Ask for feedback, and receive it graciously in order to progress.
- Constantly seek to improve, based on the feedback you’ve received. These may be improvements to the company structure, or they may be addressed to you as a person. Try to remember that your employees are people too, and that their feelings are valid. As tempting as it may be to march up to Dave’s desk and deny that you’ve ever had coffee breath, it won’t really solve anything. Pop in a mint the next time you rub elbows with the staff, and shake it off like the pro that you are.
- Focus on the core message, not the numbers. For example, if the feedback you’ve received is single-minded in its message, pay attention. If your team is overwhelmingly telling you that deadlines are too tight, cut them some slack and reassess your deadline generation process.
Remember: extending a deadline is not the end of the world, particularly if it was likely to be missed anyways. The room to breathe will allow your employees to refocus and productivity will soar. The final product will be better as a result, and your bottom lines, too. - Trust and listen to your people. Every employee struggles daily with internal tangles that you, as the boss, never see. Every employee also fantasizes about having an open, honest, heart-to-heart with their employer about how things could be improved. It’s important to provide a reassuring, non judgemental, empathetic atmosphere to facilitate such honesty, and it’s likely that it will take some working up to.
Remember: trust is mutually earned. Build up that mutual trust, and soon your employees will feel comfortable opening up about internal issues, so that you can truly help them succeed.
It’s a lot to take on, and every organization is different. If your company would benefit from custom business consulting services personalized to you, your team, and your company, call Premier Rapport.
