Employee being is the new form of a human being. Yes, we are.
We are seeking new ways to have fulfillment to cope with increasing sophistication in life. Maybe the Neanderthals had similar oblivion when they first saw the fire and had to search for answers throughout the earth. As a result, we are spread throughout our home planet. With more curiosity now, we are targeting to explore the sky.
When discussing engagement, it’s in our civil history that we developed interest only when the work accepted us. We achieved something only when there was good teamwork, good finance, and passion.
Most of the work requires a binding element for employees to work in this corporate Jurassic. It’s a niche or next job choice when it comes to growth and involvement in an organization. Employees develop doubt in time, even when they start with euphoria and vision.
It’s the responsibility of employers to counter those doubts, at least while they are working in the office. It is good for both parties.
10 Ways to Boost Employee Engagement
Physical and Mental Health
The individual health of employees in a team must be in proper condition for collaboration. Health is not only about physical wellbeing but also mental correctness, and they should be in a psychological niche and bliss.
If the employees are struggling with their status in the office and feel compromised with their decision to work there, they can never fully focus on their work. Their productivity is always minimal, and the effort will be hard to bear. As a result, they are stressed.
You can improve physical health with exercise and workouts, and mental health should be nurtured with compassion and good behaviors from employers. As an individual, you can practice yoga daily to be mentally healthy.
Getting yourself interested and having a genuine interest in work are two different things, and you should be able to practice the best behavior to create a safe space for interest. A little bit of patience and endurance from employees are also required from employees for an engagement at the workplace.
Reducing Disturbances
All kinds of disturbances surround the workplace. Getting rid of them is impossible. But with consent, we can reduce many distracting factors.
During work time, all smartphone activities must be stopped from happening. Everyone must agree to be on a plane when working. There must not be any social media activities and replying to notifications, which are considered the most distracting factors.
Team meetings and calls must be planned beforehand. It is better to keep all meetings on hold for a specific day. That way, there will be no breaks in thought processes while working.
The personal space of every coworker must be considered by other coworkers. There should not be any noise that may disturb others.
Short breaks must be taken rather than longer breaks.
If all the efforts fail to reduce noises, we can use noise cancellation earplugs and suffer the fate of Gandhi’s monkey, if you know what I mean.
Volunteering Activities
Most of the millennials are trying to find answers to “Why?” in their workplace. There must be a higher purpose for everyone working in the office, or else the employees will get bored and lack enthusiasm.
The company and the management must recognize this fact as a crucial hurdle for better employee engagement. And plan for the volunteering activities for the betterment of the community.
The company can plan or organize an event after work and make every employee participate in the activity. Events can be of any type, charity, or recreational. The employees will have a sense of belonging through participation and long for more similar, good feelings of contribution.
The employees will get inspiration to work hard and smart for the whole week if they volunteer for a day. The company’s retention increases, and employees would appreciate the opportunity to feel a sense of belonging to the community through volunteer work in the future.
Monitoring
Even after implementing all the policies of employee engagement, there may be some leaks in the system. Many value the rules, while some may be indifferent.
If a superior monitor all the employees, they can get caught with weak performance during work hours. This fear will help them engage and be on track with their work.
There shouldn’t always be a person monitoring all the employees. It is even impossible to do such tasks. There are many monitoring and time tracking software that will help an employer to monitor the employees.
The software will continuously remind the employee if they are idle, store and track their activities data and even guide them for better time management. With better time management, there are better results.
Monitoring helps to keep employees more engaged in their work, maybe less enthusiastic, but with better productivity. But, before you start to monitor employee computer, be open and honest about it, conducting the entire process transparently and ethically.
Recognition for Achievements
Employees must be evaluated according to their performance, and the best one should always be recognized among the teams. The deserving must be awarded.
When the employer recognizes the hard work of an employee among peers, it increases their self-esteem. They will develop gratitude towards the company.
Watching the co-worker getting appreciated for their hard work, other employees seek similar recognition from the company. As a result, there is competitiveness in the work environment for better results. Projects will get finished faster, and the quality of work will rise.
Appreciation is also good for mental balance and interest in the work that employees do. They feel comfortable if someone is watching over them and if someone is conscious of their growth. It brings a positive environment where employees are more engaged.
Training and Growth
Companies must communicate prospects of intellectual and financial growth to employees when they are working for them. Everyone has the right to think about themselves.
And, without the vision of growth, no employee has a stable mind. It’s constantly in search.
The search for a better life, living standard, and the growth of knowledge motivates every working-class person. They want to be part of the growth journey in which they can reach somewhere distant and mystic.
The organization must maintain a training program to boost the knowledge of employees. Experienced mentors or tutors should guide them. The workload must be divided in such a way that everyone must have a mental model of the whole process at the end.
Some employees work for increments and bonuses. There must be a periodic review of employees’ performance and provide them with equivalent benefits.
Among all the others, training and growth are the ultimate goals of employees. Pampering them with essential increments can boost their engagement in work, no doubt.
Bonuses
Additional money to the salary solves the financial imbalance of the employees. And if the money is for the extra effort that the employees have shown for the company, it is more satisfying.
Sometimes salaries are not enough to meet ends every month. There can be many problems because of financial deficiencies that may result in employees being stressed. They cannot concentrate on the work assigned to them.
Bonuses add the reserve to tackle the economic crisis, giving hope in a time of need. Most of the complications related to the working class are related to money. So, it is a good move to provide employees with deserving bonuses for the company.
It also adds a sense of competition in the employees. They perform better and engage with passion. Passion to earn a bonus. It is good for the company, altogether.
Profit-Sharing
Sharing is a noble thing. It is least expected from most of the places. In a company, if there is a policy for sharing benefits with the employees, they will feel like a part of the company, like an owner. This concept of humility in employers helps to gain unfathomable fidelity in employees.
The organization can reach out to its employees in several ways with this model of sharing. They can provide holiday plans, increased salary, additional paid leaves, health insurance, tuition fee reimbursement, a physical fitness and training program, and other incentives.
The employees will be more engaged in the work if they have fewer things to worry about. They will have an impression of growth and stick to the policies made for a longer time.
The company will have many great outcomes from its employees with higher trust development.
Long Weekends
Holidays drop down the stress levels, and even the thought of a holiday is enough to procrastinate all your errands for the weekend. And, if there are fewer holidays, there is going to be a conflict of thoughts.
People have many duties toward other people in addition to office work. It is an unnecessary statement to be made, but most of the time, employers keep forgetting this fact or pretend not to notice.
When employees have two or three days on the weekend, they tend to work longer hours on the weekdays with much enthusiasm. The productivity is known to be much more in offices with long weekends, those who have adopted the concept.
It’s like when you were a child, your mother said, after finishing homework, you will get ice cream. It may sound like a bribe or maybe a weak metaphor, but the idea of having something in the store always gives us the energy to perform our best.
But some may only kill time to have ice cream. There are other ways of engaging those employees.
Analysis and Report
Report on the performance of the employees helps to track their progress and influences. Based on the analysis, we can recognize the value of employees to the company.
Employees become faithful when the organizing committee is committed to finding ways for their development. They will be more engaged in the work to know about their performance in the workplace.
Before, the reports used to be made manually. But nowadays, there is software that will give analytics on each employee based on the monitoring data available. We can even prepare a day-to-day analysis of any employee’s performance.
Analysis and report methodologies are good steps to boost employee engagement and inspire them to be competitive.
Conclusion
Last but not least, it depends upon employees to be active at the workplace. Rules and methods are effective if practiced; else it only wastes time.
It is said that reading is the worst form of learning, and practice provides real education. It is easy to adapt to new habits when it is for one’s wellbeing and productivity.
So let’s try to be real with the advice, one at a time if we want real consequences.