How do companies create the right conditions for their employees to "do their very best, willingly and wholeheartedly"?
We ended the previous post with this question, so let's pick up where we left off.
First of all, while low employee engagement is costly for companies, failing to retain and losing engaged employees is among the least desirable outcomes of all. According to a study conducted in the US, disengaged employees cost companies between 450 and 550 billion dollars every year.
So what should companies do, and what conditions should they create, to avoid such huge costs?
I think there is a very important central focus here, and I definitely want to open a parenthesis. Before we can talk about engaged employees, we first need to talk about "employees who participate and are recognized, that is, whose presence is acknowledged." So what is Employee Involvement?
Employee Involvement and Recognition
By employee involvement, I mean involvement in both a physical and an emotional sense.
The physical dimension is the employee waking up every morning, starting work with motivation and enthusiasm, and having the potential to keep this up throughout the day. The emotional dimension, on the other hand, is about finding meaning in the work they do, seeing it as valuable and feeling valued, feeling useful and good about themselves, and seeing and feeling where their work fits into the big picture, in other words the company's vision: what it serves, what it is for and what benefit it delivers.
For an employee to be engaged, they first need to be "involved" in processes as much as possible, and this involvement needs to be "reciprocated" on the other side. The more the company responds to this involvement, that is, the better it knows its employee, the better it understands what they can do, the better the experiences and opportunities it offers them, and the more it rewards them appropriately and at the right time, the longer-lasting this involvement and recognition will be.
What Should Companies Do for Employee Engagement?
The first thing companies need to do is:
- Create an environment where employees "find meaning in their work," supported by "clear, well-defined goals."
What I mean by "finding meaning in work" goes beyond the employee liking the job: it is knowing why they do it, what the work serves, what benefit it brings and which piece of the big puzzle it is, and being able to see clearly how it relates to the company's main goal. Once this is in place, the best approach is to develop engagement strategies specific to the company's reality by focusing on the employee's "profile and changing needs," because conditions in working life are now changing very quickly. Being able to keep up with this change is extremely critical for managing employee engagement properly.
In this post, when talking about what companies should do, I will focus on factors that are somewhat more general and universal, which everyone can benefit from at a basic level and which I have seen have the greatest positive effect on engagement. You can think of these 10 points as a shortlist drawn from my own experience to guide you. I hope you find it useful.
1) "What Do Employees Really Want, What Do They Need, and How Can I Do Better for Them?"
These and similar questions are at a very critical point for protecting and increasing your employee engagement. We live in a VUCA world and everything is in a state of massive change. Wishes, needs and expectations are changing at a pace that is hard to keep up with. In this sense, I believe companies, and HR professionals in particular, should always keep these questions on the agenda for employees and follow up on them. Let's never overlook them, and let's ask ourselves more often.
2) Watch Out for First-Line Managers!
If you ask me which factor I think affects employee engagement the most, personally I always answer "the direct manager." Because the most important factor determining your current situation, your future and your ability to be engaged at a company is "your relationship with your direct manager and their attitude toward you." That is why I believe companies should continuously contribute to and invest in the awareness and consciousness of their management teams, especially at the first level. I know many people who loved their company but, over time, lost their bond with it and resigned because of their direct manager. So if your company has problems at the "direct manager" level, it may not be very possible to create high engagement. Paying attention here can be very beneficial, even in the short term.
3) Rewards and Recognition!
This is another of the factors that most affect employee engagement. At every opportunity, and to the extent your company's means allow, develop a strong reward & recognition policy and apply it equally. Manage it openly, fairly and transparently for everyone. Its impact will definitely make a difference.
4) The Meaning of the Work Is Very Important, but There Is Something Even More Important: "The Fun of the Work"
"Having fun and enjoying work" has a very positive effect on 2 other very important factors in addition to engagement. When you make the work environment fun and, more importantly, when you can enable your employees to enjoy doing their jobs, you also positively affect "Stress and Motivation." Your employees' stress levels drop and their motivation rises.
At a company that I left with good memories and still remember with positive feelings, I had wonderful experiences in this respect, and when I think back to those days, the sentence that always comes out of my mouth is: "What a time that was, when I had so much fun and was so happy at work😊"
5) Work-Life Balance Now Stands at a Much More Critical Point.
Another parameter that will need particular care from now on is work-life balance. You should definitely not leave this balance out of your engagement equation.
When it comes to this balance, I think there has always been an "imbalance" in companies. Every company says this issue is very important to them and that they pay close attention to it, but I see that the reality is not like that at all. Now, however, conditions are a little different. Especially with the pandemic, our family life, private life and working life are intertwined as never before, and when conditions start to return to normal and working arrangements become more settled, re-establishing this balance will, I believe, be very important for employees too.
On the other hand, the factors that disrupt this balance are not only about "working overtime" or "working outside work hours, during personal time." I believe support should always be available for employees who constantly carry the burden of working life on their shoulders, or who, even if they are not physically working overtime, are psychologically always on the clock. Being aware of this is also important.
6) Give Your Employees More Scope and Responsibility, Not More Work.
As an employee's achievements at the company grow, their engagement is positively affected. So be generous in creating areas and opportunities where your employees can show more of what they can do. Different responsibilities and project work beyond their day-to-day job will not only lead employees to take on more responsibility, but will also positively affect their individual success, the company's overall success and their engagement. What is more, it will strengthen their sense of belonging.
7) Listen to Your Employees.
Listen to them not out of obligation but genuinely and wholeheartedly. Spend extra effort and time on it. Listen to their dreams, thoughts, advice and suggestions, even if it is not possible to put them into practice. I don't know of any other experience that makes a person feel as good and as relieved as "being taken into account and truly listened to."
8) Start Working on Health and "Well-Being" Practices Right Away.
With the impact of the pandemic, "practices that make employees feel good" will be much more prominent in companies from now on. In particular, practices that support employees' psychology and are mentally beneficial are, in my view, among the smartest employee investments companies can make for the future.
9) It Is Important to Grow and Sustain a Culture of "Genuine Feedback."
Do whatever you can to keep alive in your company a "constructive feedback culture that moves people forward," free of judgment and criticism, and train your managers in particular in this respect. "Genuine feedback" is one of the best gifts you can give a person, and even if it draws on the past, it will always move you forward.
10) Be Ready to Set Aside Time and Budget for "Personalized Solutions."
This is another point closely related to the question "What do employees need?" that we raised in the first item. I also covered it in my post on HR's New Agendas for 2021 and Beyond. In the coming years, "being able to design personalized solutions and practices" for employees will be very valuable, because needs will diversify and solutions will differ. Practices such as offering employees in-house coaching aligned with their agendas and managing their training needs more individually (adaptive learning models) will make employees feel valued while also increasing engagement.
In my view, employee engagement is one of the hardest topics in HR. It is an area whose impact unfolds over time, where you sometimes cannot see the effect of your actions in the short term, which requires long, step-by-step work, and where you must continually identify areas for improvement and knit it together stitch by stitch. But once you achieve continuity, it makes many different processes easier and strengthens your hand. For all these reasons, it is a topic that every company, large or small, must address.
I hope this post sheds at least a little light on your engagement work.
In the next post, we will focus on "Employee Happiness."
See you then,
Stay healthy
