5 Powerful Tips for Improving Employee Engagement (Guest blog)

Top performing employees become the most valuable asset for a company. The problem is that if you don’t keep them happy and engaged, they will leave you as soon as a better opportunity arises. It’s not enough to explore and hire the best talent - you have to keep them engaged and motivated as well if you wish to enjoy a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.

When employees are happy, they tend to put in more efforts, invest more time and think out-of-the-box to help the company grow. When they are not engaged, then exactly the opposite happens.

If you wish to have a team of top performing, energetic and enthusiastic employees, then you need to improve employee engagement at work. This is the only way you can succeed and steadily grow in today’s cutthroat business competition.

You might wonder, “What steps should I take to improve employee engagement?”

Here are a few powerful and practical tips that will enable you to achieve this goal in a strategic and proven manner:

1. Motivate them with Quick Feedback

Don’t rely on annual performance reviews to share your thoughts and feedback with your employees because this is not a good way of engaging them. If you wait for too long to give your feedback, you will demotivate your employees. You need to connect with your employees more frequently and let them know how you think. When you praise them for their efforts, they will work even harder for you.

2. Let Your Employees Speak their Minds

A lot of employees, if not most, feel uncomfortable because they can’t freely share their thoughts and concerns. This will cause frustration and keep them from coming up with practical ideas and solutions that can help your company get better and bigger. Frequent meetings with your employees will help them open up with you. However, remember that some employees may not be comfortable speaking in front of others, so for them it’s better to have an ‘open-door’ policy. Let them come to you when they need you.

3. Show Flexibility and Care

In a corporate environment, you work with adults. Thus, there is no need to look over their shoulders all the time to see what they are doing. Your employees should certainly be held accountable for their performance but you need to show them that you care and are willing to help them live a balanced life. You can do so by offering flexible hours or by allowing them to work from home, and so on. As long as they do their work with dedication and produce the desired results, you should certainly be flexible with them. This practice will tremendously enhance employee engagement as well as productivity.

4. Offer Rewards to Top Performing Employees

If you want your employees to work hard and show utter dedication, then you need to recognize their efforts and reward them accordingly. When you recognize their accomplishments and reward them in front of others, you will not only motivate them to work harder, you will encourage other employees to do the same as well. When they know that they will get something extra for their hard work, they will never let this opportunity pass them by.

5. Have Frequent Brainstorming Sessions

It will be a mistake to rely on your ideas alone to grow your company. You never know what sort of amazing idea one of your co-workers may have. Even if they don’t have any great ideas right now, with frequent brainstorming sessions, you will be able to have them get their creative juices flowing. When your employees realize that you value their suggestions, they will try to come up with new and interesting ideas to help your company grow. If they are involved in growth, they will naturally stay engaged.

AUTHOR BIO
Eric Philip is an experienced Writer having a diversified expertise in education, career and technology writing. At present, he is helping students who ask, Do my dissertation for me to acquire the best grades. He spends his leisure moments with family and friends.