5 Effective Employee Engagement Strategies for Your Business

A winning employment engagement strategy is vital for a healthy business. Keeping your workforce happy is as beneficial to you as it is to your staff. By taking the right steps to boost employee satisfaction, your business can get an edge on the competition. After all, the stats don’t lie: according to Forbes, content employees are 20% more productive than those that are unhappy.

With one third of the UK workforce being reportedly unsatisfied with their day job, it’s clear that a lot of business owners need to work on their employment engagement strategy. Doing so is essential for retaining talent and, ultimately, producing the right business numbers.

A lot of business owners find it difficult to work out where to start when it comes to effective employee engagement strategies. Let’s have a look at some different methods that can put smiles on employee’s faces and grease the gears of your business.

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5 Effective Employee Engagement Strategies

1) Establish well defined roles. Letting your employees know exactly what their job is and showing them what value they hold for your business is critical to success. From the recruitment stage, Good employers will set out an accurate job description for a vacant role. From then on, you are responsible for connecting the employee with your business’ broader mission. That way, your workforce will be motivated purely by the feeling that they are valued.

2) Incentivise hard work. For employees, knowing that their hard work will pad the pockets of their employers isn’t enough. They’re not going to make the effort to squeeze in that extra sale or resolve a customer concern for that reason alone. Giving them their own investment in your business can give them their own reason to shift into that extra gear of productivity.

Several businesses from independent retailers to large corporations opt to provide incentives for their workforce. One of these is Waitrose. By offering British financial shares in the company to all of its employees, this supermarket chain has given all of its staff a stake in its success. This way, shareholders can rest assured that the company’s employees will be doing their best to provide the best service possible.

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3) Focus on more than just profit. Whether that’s boosting opportunities, saving the environment or just generally improving lives, these initiatives need to be sold to your workforce. Those that feel that they are making a meaningful difference to the world by doing the work that they do are more likely to be committed to their jobs, and far less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.

4) Praise a job well done. Letting hard work go unrewarded can have serious implications for the happiness of your workforce. Receiving recognition for a convincing presentation or a well-written report gives employees a reason to put the same amount of effort in next time.

A pat on the back now again can also help you to foster a healthy working relationship with your employees. Doing so will make you a more approachable boss and encourage consistent communication between the different levels of your business. By making sure that everyone is working on the same page, you can trust that your business is doing everything in its capacity to produce results.

5) Create an inspiring workspace. Working in a healthy and safe environment builds trust between employees and employers. Providing your staff with a comfortable workspace encourages them to work effectively and focus on the task at hand.

Developing an on-brand workspace is a way in which you can encourage your employees to identify with your business. Whatever your business premises are, whether it be office, shop floor or restaurant, surrounding them with your brand design and values can help your staff to feel a part of the company. After all, your employees aren’t just employees, they are potential brand ambassadors that can sell your company to friends and family.

Benefits of an Employee Engagement Strategy

1) Boosting productivity. Let’s hammer it home one last time. A healthy employee engagement strategy produces results for employers and employees alike. While your staff are feeling the benefits of feeling integral to your business structure, business owners reap the rewards of increased revenues. That can be the difference between a successful or unsuccessful year for any franchise, SME or large corporation.

2) Retaining the best talent. With the new generation of working-age people being more likely to make career changes than any before it, every business needs to do everything it can to keep talent on-board. Utilising employee engagement strategies helps you to do that by keeping staff emotionally – and perhaps even financially – invested in the brand they work for.

3) Creating a team of brand ambassadors. The only way to get your employees to ‘wear’ your brand is to make them feel like they are a part of something special. Having the backing of a team of staff who identify with your brand’s mission and values helps to spread the word about the good work that you’re doing.

4) It gives you an edge on the competition. Motivated employees are much more likely to get fired up by the prospect of beating market competitors. Those that are not in tuned into their employer’s mission are unlikely to genuinely care about the threat of other businesses in your industry.

With a team of staff that are all on the same page, a business has the resources it needs to keep shareholders happy. After all, employees act as the engine of a business. Without them working at full-capacity, your business will lose pace.

5) Reducing costs. A few fully-motivated individuals can produce the same results as a whole team of disenfranchised team members. By making investments into employee engagement, such as a comfortable workspace, your brand’s social mission or employee incentives, your business can save money on salaries.