Strategies to Improve Employee Engagement
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Employee
Engagement is crucial for any organization to achieve its organizational goals.
To productively achieve the goals, you need to have a set of committed employees
who drive in the same direction as same as the company. For this reason, companies
are nowadays looking for strategies to improve employee engagement for
increased productivity.
Requirement of an Employee Engagement
Plan
There can be various
strategies to improve employee engagement. However, it is important to identify
your employees, their concerns, and what can influence them most in the terms
of Employee Engagement.
An employee
engagement plan is a mechanism that organizations develop to define and
prioritize their actions for improving employee engagement. It enables
recognizing the key factors that influence employee engagement, identifying the
employees’ pain points, and creating customized initiatives to address them.
These can be fast and easy employee engagement improvements, as well as
long-term programs. (Pathak, 2021)
Strategies to Improve Employee Engagement
According
to Carolyn Yvette Taylor (2019), leaders influence employee
engagement through open communication, providing rewards or recognition as
performance incentives, and creating a psychologically safe work environment.
1.
Communication
One of the most important things
to keep employees engaged is
Communication. It’s the employees who determine the quality of the workplace
and the future of the organization, therefore they must be kept updated of
what’s happening in the organization. It’s very important that people and
departments don’t start working in silos or start getting disconnected from
their coworkers.
An internal communication system will help keep employees in the
loop with what’s going on in the organization — whether it’s a change in
HR policies, new manager in a certain department, a new client or anything
else. This could be done digitally or offline — through the company intranet,
text messages, posters — choose a medium or more that’s most relevant and that
works best.
Employees must feel that they can open up about any issues that
they might be facing with their coworkers or managers. (Profit.Co, n.d)
2.
Recognition and Rewards
Recognition
should always be part of the
feedback leaders provide to employees. Recognition is such a powerful tool for
building engagement because it meets a core human need for both the employee
and the manager.
For recognition to be most effective, it should be
given often, and it should be specific so employees know the work they do in
their individual roles is seen and appreciated. Recognizing employees for their
accomplishments shows them not only that leadership is paying attention, but
that they also value the work employees do. (Tenney, 2023)
Rewards are the items
and experiences that employees earn for meeting goals, turning in exceptional
work, being a team player or any other recognition parameters that a manager
puts in place. Rewards can be monetary or non-monetary. (Indeed
Editorial Team, 2022)
3.
Work Environment
A
work environment is the setting, social features and physical conditions in
which you perform your job. These elements can impact feelings of well-being,
workplace relationships, collaboration, efficiency and employee health. (Herrity,
2023)
It
is common for employees to lack productivity when the workplace is unfavorable
or uncomfortable. However, a positive work environment can foster happiness and
enthusiasm across the company and facilitate employees' smooth performance of
their duties. (Jones, 2022)
Conclusion
According
to William Kahn’s (1990) theory of personal engagement, Employee engagement
can be described as a motivational concept, in which employees experience a
physical, cognitive, or emotional connection to their work and coworkers.
To improve Employee Engagement, it is vital to have good
communication, rewards and recognition, and a proper work environment in the
workplace.
References
Herrity, J. (2023) 5 Types of Work Environments (And How To Find the One for You) [online]
Indeed. Available from: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/types-of-work-environments#:~:text=What%20is%20a%20work%20environment,collaboration%2C%20efficiency%20and%20employee%20health.
[Accessed on 20th April 2023]
Indeed
Editorial Team (2022) Rewards and
Incentives in the Workplace (Advantages and Examples) [online] Indeed.
Available from: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/rewards-incentives#:~:text=Rewards%20are%20the%20items%20and,be%20monetary%20or%20non%2Dmonetary.
[Accessed on 20th April 2023]
Jones, S. (2022) The
Importance of Workplace Environment in Employee Engagement [online] The Staffing
Stream. Available from: https://www.thestaffingstream.com/2022/08/26/the-importance-of-workplace-environment-in-employee-engagement/#:~:text=Creates%20happiness%20within%20the%20workplace.&text=It%20is%20common%20for%20employees,smooth%20performance%20of%20their%20duties.
[Accessed on 20th April 2023]
Kahn, W. A. (1990)
Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy
of Management Journal, 33(4) 692-724.
This is a very informative blog Thilini, Also It's very important that you have highlighted the Communication point because we can see many lapses in Sri Lankan companies .
ReplyDeleteThank you and agree with you Gayan, effective open communication is vital for employees to express their concerns as well as innovative input and will have a healthy impact on Employee Engagement.
DeleteThis blog post on improving employee engagement presents several strategies that organizations can use to create a committed workforce. The writer asserts that a comprehensive employee engagement plan is crucial for identifying key factors that influence employee engagement and creating customized initiatives to address them. I agree that a well-planned employee engagement plan can lead to increased productivity and improved employee satisfaction. Briscoe et al. (2012) posit that employees who feel valued and appreciated are more committed to their work and are likely to be more productive. To achieve this, companies should focus on creating a psychologically safe work environment, which can be achieved through open communication (Taylor, 2019) and a positive work environment (Herrity, 2023). Additionally, recognizing employees' achievements is critical to creating a culture of engagement (Tenney, 2023), and this can be achieved through reward systems (Indeed Editorial Team, 2022). Overall, the article provides practical strategies that companies can use to improve employee engagement, which is essential for achieving organizational goals.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your value-added comment Hassan. Agree with your content.
DeleteSun and Bunchapattanasakda (2019) posit that factors that influence employee engagement are found to be three as below;
ReplyDelete1. Organisational factors.
2. Job factors.
3. Individual factors.