Employee engagement is essential to the success and growth of a business. Indeed, studies show that committed employees are more motivated, more productive and more likely to remain loyal to their company for several years. However, it is not always easy to find solutions to fully engage your employees. Good news: you don't have to use a company or a specialized consulting firm to succeed in doing so. Here are 5 tips for effectively engaging your employees within your company.
1 — Calculate the engagement rate of your employees
If you want to implement solutions to improve the engagement rate of your employees, you must first perform some calculations. By being aware of your initial figures, you can easily see the positive (or negative) effects of the actions taken.
In particular, you can monitor the following indicators:
- The eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score). It measures the distribution between promoters and detractors of your company within the workforce. It allows you to assess the degree of involvement of employees in your organization.
- The turnover rate. It is calculated by period, as a percentage. It makes it possible to assess the number of voluntary departures in relation to the overall workforce. A turnover rate that is too high can be a sign of low commitment on the part of employees.
- The absenteeism rate. In the same way, when it is too high, it can be a sign of a general malaise in the workforce.
You can choose to evaluate one or more indicators, and redo measurements a few months after implementing your actions in favor of the engagement of your employees. By comparing data, you can better understand the impact of your decisions.
2 — Understand the expectations of your employees
Employee expectations and priorities have changed a lot in recent years. It is therefore important to take these mutations into account in order to better meet their desires.
In particular, an IFOP study carried out in May 2020 showed that for 81% of employees, well-being at work had become a priority issue. Many are also looking for meaning, need to have a positive impact on society, and want to work for a company that shares their values. Listening and recognition are also increasingly sought after by employees.
To successfully engage your employees, it is therefore important that you take the time to understand what drives them and what they need to get involved alongside you. Don't rely on assumptions: talk to each person instead to determine their priorities.
3 — Improve the working conditions of your employees
Working conditions are composed of various factors: material, social, psychological, organizational. It is the set of elements that make up the work environment.
It is essential to worry about this, because the way in which the work environment is experienced by your employees has a certain influence on their health, absenteeism and turnover, but also and especially on their sense of belonging.
For an employee to want to commit to his company, it is important for him to feel that his company is also committed to him. So take stock of your situation, identify the topics on which you need to make progress and establish a list of concrete actions to develop to meet the different needs of your employees. Recognition, personal development or even the establishment of a participatory management are often mentioned to improve the working conditions of employees.
4 — Involve your employees in innovation by encouraging them to take initiatives
Initiatives taken by employees are a source of performance in companies: this was demonstrated in 2017 by a study by Oresys. It is also an excellent way to engage your employees, by offering them the opportunity to invest in projects they had the idea of and that they personally want to implement.
Encourage Taking the initiative is therefore one of the most effective ways to engage employees over the long term. For the company, this is beneficial, as it encourages innovation and the implementation of projects in favor of well-being, CSR, product development, etc.
5 — Use tools to catalyze the projects of your employees
Finally, to encourage the commitment of your employees, you can set up one or more tools specially designed to promote initiative taking and the use of collective intelligence. A good example of this is the Teamstarter crowdfunding platform.
The principle: each of your employees is allocated a monthly budget. He can decide to finance the project of his choice with this money, from a list of proposals made by other collaborators. These project leaders are responsible for implementing them as soon as they have raised the amount necessary for implementation.
This system strongly encourages employees to get involved with their company. It is a very effective and easy to implement way to involve your employees actively in the life of the organization. They thus become actors, develop their creativity and get involved in the implementation of projects they believe in.
The commitment of your employees is critical to the success of your business. To increase your engagement rate, start by evaluating it in order to have a baseline measurement. Then put in place actions in favor of your employees: definition of everyone's expectations, improvement of working conditions, encouragement to take initiative. You do not have to use a consulting firm to engage your employees: the implementation of tools specially designed to catalyze the projects of your employees is generally sufficient to obtain concrete results. Investing in employee engagement is an effective way to drive business growth and success. This results in increased productivity, greater employee retention and better overall performance.
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