An important role of the human resources function is to increase employee engagement, which presents various challenges. These challenges are amplified when applied to a hybrid or remote workforce.
In order for your organisation to thrive this year, undoubtedly employee engagement is a hot topic.
Here, we present four key areas of focus to improve employee engagement:
- Encourage and invest in personal development
- Employees that have a passion for continuous improvement tend to be the most engaged. They understand the role each task they undertake and the more project-focused activities play in terms of their development. Being hungry to learn generally means a career focus; it’s important that employers support this, ensuring that they make sensible investments in development. With 94% of employees saying that they’d stay at a company for longer if it invested in their development, the real question is: can you afford not to invest?
- Recognise and reward your team for their hard work
- As an employer, of course we expect employees to bring their best self to work every day and give it their all. However, most employees make sacrifices for work, leaving behind their family daily and are expected to focus wholly on their work. This would be much easier if we were robots, but alas… we are sentient beings! Undoubtedly a team that comes together and does special things needs to be recognised and rewarded. That doesn’t mean you have to pay bonuses out at any opportunity; consider special awards and various other perks such as days off in lieu in exchange for employees achieving greatness.
- Encourage teamwork and collaboration among employees
- Teamwork makes the dream work! Organisations that foster and value collaboration and teamwork undoubtedly perform well. Those that perform the best tend to place more emphasis on collaboration at any opportunity; secondments, team building days, inter-departmental shindigs… collaboration comes in many ways and it’s important people see the value in their contributions to the whole organisation, not just their immediate team.
- Provide employees with tools and resources for success
- This one seems obvious, but odds on, there will be some blind spots in your organisation that could be picked up by tech. Still using spreadsheets? Consider a project management tool! Not checking in on employee wellbeing using a tech-enabled wellbeing platform? We have just the solution for you. Tech-enabled solutions can turn your organisation from reactive to proactive overnight.
Whilst many would much rather be in bed on a cold winter morning, feeling valued and engaged at work can really make all the difference to employee motivation and organisational productivity.
What will you be doing differently to increase employee engagement in your organisation? Get in touch and let us know!
