4 Practical Employee Engagement Strategies that Drive Results

Recent statistics indicate that engagement in our US companies is very low, around 32%.  This means that two thirds of our workforce is showing up to work every day under half steam.  To an owner of an organization this is difficult news.  Why are so many people disengaged?  There is another statistic that says that many people are not satisfied with their current position and when the economy picks up they will be looking for a new job.  A large research firm just lost one third of their IT department to a competitor.  The reason, the employees didn’t feel they made a difference and felt insignificant.  This is of course a very significant loss to an organization and there is a big link between people being engaged and satisfied at work.  So what can a company do to engage their people?

1)    Create a sharing culture rather then a telling culture. Hold meetings that allow employees an opportunity to share what they see, think and feel.  What are the clients feeling? Use the information from your employees and clients to create new ways to operate in the company.  People do not hate change nearly as much when they are involved in the creation of it.

2)    Create time on peoples’ calendars to create and implement new ideas.  Many people fail to share great ideas because it often means more work on top of an overwhelming work load.  Compensate people for new ideas and improved processes.

3)    Create visuals in the office that show how things are going.  If someone knows that their idea is moving along they will have a great feeling of being involved.

4)    Have people bring pen and paper to meetings.  Leave all computers out of your meetings as they create a difficult distraction and prohibit creativity.