What’s one of the best ways to have better performance, creativity and retention at your company or team?
It’s having engaged employees: people who are positive about their work and team and proud of their company. Employee engagement is the degree to which employees are emotionally connected and committed to their organization and their role, exerting discretionary effort for the betterment of the organization.
How to increase engagement? As a leader, you start by setting up a process where you constantly know the pulse of your employees. Some use employee surveys just once or twice per year. But more and more companies move towards monthly and weekly communication between their employees, team leaders and management.
According to Human Capital Institute, here are a few facts about employee engagement and surveys:
- Only 1 in 3 employees is engaged, which means disengagement is prevalent at most organizations.
- Engaged employees are 2.65 times more likely to be A performers than C performers.
- Compared to the disengaged, engaged employees are 78% more likely to agree they are committed to the organization.
- Compared to disengaged employees, engaged employees are 38% more likely to agree they are not afraid to try new things in their job.
- The purpose of an engagement survey is organizational change: to first measure the drivers behind engagement and then improve it. Half the potential value of engagement surveys is lost due to lack of change and communication of change.
- When identifying what to change, prioritize: consider what driver will have the biggest impact on engagement, not just which ones scored poorly.
Just like for 1-time surveys, this applies also for weekly employee reporting via team management tools like Weekdone. First measure, then improve. Always prioritize and via your guidance help your team to focus on what’s important. It ‘s a good first step to start getting updates from your people on what their goals and accomplishments are and what makes them happy and sad at work. Just as important is to follow with managerial feedback back to them and implementing changes based on their reports. As a manager, the feedback part is one of the key things in building an engaged workforce.
Like HCI says: “In turn, Performance, Retention, and Creativity drive: Increased Revenue and Decreased Costs. And as a result, increased revenue and decreased costs drive: Profitability and Shareholder Value.”
Today is as good day as any to start implementing the process of better employee communication.