Virtually every organization in the world would jump at the chance to improve employee engagement with minimal effort. More engaged employees stick around for longer, are more motivated and more productive. But companies often miss the mark when it comes to employee engagement activities – a ping-pong table, free massages or a company-branded t-shirt may be appreciated, but they don’t lead to long-term, meaningful engagement. In fact, 63% of US companies say that employee retention is actually more challenging than hiring new employees.
So, what are the most effective employee engagement activities that will lead to genuine results for you and your people?
Employee engagement surveys
Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability than those who are less engaged. One way to benchmark engagement levels in your organization is with an employee engagement survey. This allows you to see how engaged people are right now, and how this compares with previous years. But given just 22% of organizations get good results from their employee engagement surveys, how can you avoid the common pitfalls?
The main thing to remember when you’re building an employee engagement survey is to keep it relatively short to avoid people getting bored and abandoning the survey. Also be sure to include both qualitative and quantitative questions, including at least one open-ended response where people can share thoughts not included in the rest of the survey, and keep the scales (e.g. from 1 to 5, strongly agree to strongly disagree) consistent throughout for easier comparison between answers.
Prioritize performance management
Did you know that 89% of HR leaders agree that peer feedback and regular performance check-ins are key for successful engagement? The more managers and employees speak, the better the understanding of what needs to happen, whether that’s offering up training opportunities, removing blockers or reviewing achievements.
Linking your learning platform, whether that’s an LMS, an LXP or both, to your performance management system, ensures that there’s a clear link between performance and personal development. After each performance check-in, managers can record the conversation in the system, and employees can see what short-term tasks they need to complete in order to work towards their long-term goals.
Encourage everyone to contribute
Employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work. But in many workplaces, the same few voices dominate the conversation, leaving the majority of employees feeling disengaged and unheard.
A learning experience platform (LXP) such as Totara Engage is a highly effective way to encourage collaboration and contributions from every member of the organization, ensuring everyone has their say. You can create collaborative workspaces to support online conversations, encourage knowledgeable team members to curate lists of resources and establish a culture of discussion and sharing. You can carry out polls and pulse surveys to gather opinions quickly, and give everyone the opportunity to share their opinion.
Create a favorable work-life balance
Employees will always appreciate their employer supporting wellbeing initiatives. However, as mentioned above, while free massages, cycle-to-work schemes and office fruit boxes can play a part, what really matters is treating your employees as adults and empowering them to take control of their own work-life balance.
This means supporting flexible working, ensuring employees have the tools and systems they need to succeed and really listening to their needs. Happy employees are engaged employees, and supporting personal development, championing a healthy work-life balance and creating an open dialogue between managers and employees is the way to ensure your workforce stays engaged and productive.
