Are your workforce motivated or engaged?
An employee can be motivated to be at work or to hit certain targets even if they are not engaged with the values, culture and goals of the business. Motivation can be achieved by rewarding people with financial gain such as pay, bonus or commission; recognition; or increased responsibility.
Employee engagement is more comprehensive and includes motivation, but also commitment and loyalty to the business, enjoyment of the job and the willingness to put in effort above and beyond the basic requirements of the role.
Two key questions which can be asked to assess engagement are:
- Do you intend to be here in a years’ time?
- Would you recommend this business to family and friends as a good place to work?
Ultimately, you want your employees to be fully engaged with your business, rather than just turning up to work in exchange for a pay packet at the end of the month. You want them to feel as passionately about your business, your products and services and your clients as you do.
But, how do you achieve employee engagement across all of your workforce?
The first stage is to understand where you are now – this requires a survey which looks at the key factors of engagement:
- How engaged at staff with the purpose of the organisation?
- How do staff view the ownership of the business?
- What do staff think of the leaders of the business?
- How effectively do staff work with colleagues?
- How engaged are staff with your customers?
- How engaged are staff as individuals within your business?
Then, based on the results, you need to develop a plan. Look at the areas of weakness and put in place strategies to make improvements. If you are in a larger business, you may need different strategies for different sites, or different teams. Involving staff in developing the engagement strategy can in itself help increase engagement, but make sure they don’t feel ‘dumped’ on.
Once you have a plan to improve employee engagement, you need to communicate and implement it. You need set activities and timescales.
You then need regular reviews. Is what you are doing making a difference? Are your employee engagement scores moving in the right direction? If not, why not?
Holding up a mirror to your organisation is not easy, especially if you are the business owner in a small business, but if you have the ability to seek honest feedback and make any necessary changes, your business will be a better place to be for you and your staff and, ultimately, a more successful business in the future.
At DOHR we believe that to have a truly successful business, you need to have a FULLY engaged workforce. But how do you measure exactly how engaged your team are?
We are an authorised partner of Engagement Multiplier, a very advanced, but simple to use online tool for assessing the engagement of your team. Click on the button opposite to take a look at the tool and to get your free trial.
