How to improve employee engagement

Employee engagement is major factor in employee retention and productivity, and for the employee themselves, engagement can be a major driver of well being in the workplace. We’re going to look at how you can improve employee engagement in your company.

1. How can you measure employee engagement?

You can create a survey to measure employee engagement, you could use a technique such as NPS that asks a single question (how likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work) or design your own survey to ask more questions about how employees feel about their work environment, their compensation, their career prospects, the direction of the company. To create the survey you can use tools such as Survey Monkey, or a specialist HR consultancy to run the research. The key thing is to run the same questions over time to build a trend. When your analysing the results look the data by department, geography and business function to identify how different parts of your organisation perform. Reading through the individual replies in the comments sections can give you a great feel for how your team is feeling.

2. How can objective setting improve engagement?

A great objective setting process and culture across a team or an organisation can improve engagement in two very important ways. Firstly by providing clarity; simply put, people want to know what they are supposed to be doing. Business priorities can change, and a process that reflects changing business and team goals into clear objectives will give team members clarity on what they are supposed to be doing. The second way objectives improve engagement is by providing independence to individuals – great objectives are like a framework individuals can operate in, if they are clear on their goals they can develop their own plans on how to achieve them. io-teams can help your team keep track of their evolving goals and objectives.

3. How can managers improve engagement in their team

Creating a trusting environment, where individuals are encouraged to grow their independence can have a major impact on team engagement. Setting clear team goals, and translating them into individual goals and objectives can give real clarity to a team on what they are supposed to do. Regular, weekly one-to-ones between line managers and team members to discuss performance and individual objectives will ensure both line manager and team member are engaged in thinking about how they ensure the team member achieves their goals.

4. How can annual review processes improve engagement?

The annual review process provides feedback to the employee on how they have done over the year, where they’ve met objectives, where they’ve missed them, and provides time to talk about development opportunities. Both line manager and team member should feel shared responsibility for the team members development , the review should be an honest conversation that set expectations, and provides supportive coaching to help the team member achieve their potential. io-teams can help employees prepare for annual reviews by keeping an open conversation going throughout the year.

5. What can I do today to improve my teams engagement?

If you want to make a change today, book a 2 hour work shop and get your team together for an objectives planning session. Start with brainstorm goals for the team, and objectives to meet these. Then break the team goals out into individual owners and shared objectives and goals. Finally ask each individual to add their own personal goals and objectives. Write them up and review the full list, prioritising the team goals and objectives. To bring it to life, meet for a quick meeting once a week to review what each individual did to work towards their objectives in the prior week and what they will do in the next week. Use io-teams to keep track of your objectives and process.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you improve employee engagement in your company