These 6 Essential Steps Must Be Part of Your Action Plan to Connect With Your Employees and Improve Employee Engagement

How engaged are you at work?   As a leader, do you keep employee satisfaction top of mind?  Do you have a plan in place to decrease employee turnover and improve employee engagement?  If you do not, don’t be fooled into thinking that you don’t have a problem.

The statistics are startling and the trend is not getting better.  Here are some statistics from Dale Carnegie Training.

Employee Engagement Infographic – An infographic by the team at Dale Carnegie Training Employee Engagement Infographic

What those statistics prove is that it is crucial that improving employee engagement becomes part of your culture.  Whether you are an executive, top-level leader or not, you need to start by making this part of your on-boarding and continuing the training after.   Management plays a huge role in how committed employees are at work.  If Employee Motivation and retention is a priority, are you training and coaching observable behaviors?  Do you have a system in place to measure employee engagement, which may include surveys?

As an Addition to the Infographic, Here Are 6 Essential Steps That Need to be Part of Your Employee Engagement Action Plan:

1.  Put People First

Don’t just rely on Performance Reviews as your plan for your employees.  Make sure you have a good development plan, which includes a section to increase skills, and maximize on strengths.

2.  Create Opportunities for Personal Growth

This goes beyond the development plan.  Employees are engaged when they feel they are performing meaningful work.  Stretch projects are a great way to engage your people and their ideas.  When employees feel they are making a difference, their motivation increases.

3.  Break Down Barriers to Information

It can be very frustrating as an employee to feel like they are out of the loop when it comes to the company’s direction.  Ensure that you keep employees informed of strategies and make frequent communication part of the culture.  When employees feel they have all the information, they feel more connected and involved.

4.  Make It OK to Fail

When employees know that the company understands that failure is part of growing, employees are more inclined to think and act out of the box.  It is OK to fail if it is part of the learning process and as long as mistakes are not repeated.  If failure is not an option, often employees will be afraid to even try.

5.  Listening Ratio to Talking Ratio

What is your listening to talking ratio?  Are you taking some time from your schedule to ask questions and listen to your employees?  Are you ensuring that you are talking with your team instead of at your team?  Effective communication is a two-way process and a great way to increase the level of trust.  If employees feel that you care, they will in turn tend to care as well.

6.  Create a culture of Recognition

In a 2012 employee recognition study from Forbes, results showed that companies that scored in the top 20% for building a “recognition-rich culture” actually had 31% lower voluntary turnover rates! What does your recognition culture look like?  Is it simply tenure based, or based on the recognition of specific results and behaviors?

Do you want to know what investing in a great employee engagement program can bring in returns?  Use this employee engagement ROI calculator to find out.

What step do you feel is essential to improving employee engagement?  As an employee, how engaged are you?