How can you use Employee Engagement drivers in your work?

Think of Employee Engagement drivers as magical ingredients in a secret recipe. Use recognition as the main spice by regularly appreciating efforts. Mix in growth opportunities as a secret herb by providing continuous learning. Add autonomy by allowing ownership of projects. Stir in open communication to foster trust. Garnish with wellness programs to support physical and mental health. These magical ingredients create a vibrant workplace. Everyone feels valued and motivated.

Utilize Employee Engagement drivers to enhance workplace satisfaction and productivity. Identify key factors such as clear communication, opportunities for growth, and recognition, then tailor strategies to address them. Foster open communication channels, provide training and development programs, and implement recognition initiatives. Regularly assess employee needs and sentiments through surveys and feedback mechanisms to continuously refine engagement strategies. By prioritizing these drivers, you create a work environment where employees feel valued, motivated, and committed to achieving organizational goals.

As a SHRM senior certified HR professional, I've seen a number of different models that outline drivers of employee engagement. My favorite is Gallup's definition: Employee engagement is the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. They define key drivers as purpose, development, a caring manager, ongoing conversations, and focus on future growth. In my experience, a caring manager can truly drive employee engagement. This is why its incredibly important to focus on your manager cohort. How is your company caring for, developing, and supporting managers?

Use Employee Engagement drivers by: Identifying Key Drivers: Understand what factors most impact your employees’ engagement. Aligning Practices: Implement strategies that address these drivers, such as career development, recognition, and work-life balance. Measuring Impact: Regularly assess how changes in these areas affect engagement levels. Adapting Approaches: Continuously refine your practices based on feedback and engagement metrics. This ensures that your efforts effectively enhance engagement and improve overall employee satisfaction.

The best way to view engagement drivers is that they are the aspects of employee experience that predict if someone is engaged or not. General models are useful, but it's worth also identifying the specific drivers that are the most important at your own organisation, e.g., through regression analysis.

A sense of belongingness is one of the most important intrinsic drivers of employee engagement in the workplace. When employees feel valued for their contributions, see their work as meaningful, and have a strong sense of belonging to a team, they're naturally more engaged and productive. Leaders play a crucial role in cultivating this environment. This means that the employees are viewed as more than just machines being paid for their output. As work complexity increases, supportive managers can launch better initiatives for the well-being of their team members. They build a strong workplace by trusting managers, providing resources, and offering development opportunities. This boosts employee engagement and drives business success.

Here are some examples of extrinsic drivers: - Providing performance-based bonuses or incentives tied to achieving individual or team goals. - Implementing a peer-to-peer recognition program where employees can nominate their colleagues. - Providing flexible work arrangements such as remote work options, flexible hours, or 4 day week. - Creating a positive and inclusive workplace culture where employees feel valued, respected, and supported.

Managers must recognize the paramount importance of the employee-manager relationship, acknowledging it as the primary driver of engagement. Understanding employees' intrinsic motivations is pivotal in nurturing this relationship. Empower your team with autonomy by allowing them to make decisions and take ownership of their projects. Help them connect with the organization's purpose, aligning individual tasks with larger objectives. Support skill development and growth by providing opportunities for learning and mastery. Foster a culture of open communication and constructive feedback. Doing so will make your employees’ roles as personally rewarding as possible.

We are always more motivated to do what matters to us. Much of corporate work is about external expectations. We get so much farther when people are willing and able; find out what matters to people, and you will take into how they are already intrinsically motivated.

"Using intrinsic drivers" is a bit of jargon. It's also this "golden pot" that everyone seeks. But I think we can make it simpler: What are people ALREADY drawn to? If we are going in the same direction, use that motivation. This means we need to know people's: - Strengths - Values - Default behaviours - Career path thus far and projection forward Also, we can build on UNIVERSAL intrinsic desires, but these are a bit more dicey, because idiosyncrasies and diversity really do exist. However, three for sure: 1. Clarity 2. Enjoyment 3. Utility

There is a lot of research that suggests that pay doesn't work as a motivator in the long term. One thing to consider as it relates to the role of self is that pay may be more motivating early in your career as you are striving to improve your economic situation (ex: needing to pay off student debt). There will (hopefully) come a point where pay is less motivating, as you are living comfortably. When this happens, if you are only chasing roles for more money, you will never be satisfied. This is where you will need to self-reflect on what truly makes you happy in a job, and start being more selective in the types of work you choose to take on.

my thoughts on this: - Recognition and Rewards: Implement structured recognition programs, including bonuses or public acknowledgment of achievements. - Compensation and Benefits: Offer competitive salaries, benefits, and performance-based incentives like commissions. - Career Advancement: Provide clear pathways for promotion based on performance evaluations and skill enhancement opportunities. - Flexible Work Arrangements: Allow for flexible schedules or remote work options to enhance work-life balance. - Training and Development: Invest in employee growth through training programs and skill enhancement opportunities. - Performance Recognition: Reward employees for meeting or exceeding targets with bonuses or special awards.

There's research that suggests extrinsic motivators, like rewards, are a double edge sword First off, some people respond to extrinsic motivation like pay. But, when the pay isn't there, they won't be motivated anymore. Some are NOT motivated by pay in the same way. But they are also more likely to engage regardless of pay.

There are lots of models. The recommended Gallup Q12 and SHRM are both very good, mainly because they can be reduced even further. All good models will ultimately reduce the framework to 3 or 4 core pillars, which you can focus on. More than that, and you can't use the model in a practical way. Ultimately, all models follow the same reduction: - Head engagement (communication, understanding, knowing goals and expectations) - Hands engagement (doing the job, having the tools, the way people interact, how meetings are run, the chance to enjoy their work and do what they do best) - Heart engagement (the benefit to one's life, the sense of belonging, the ability to grow in their role, the chance to play a part in something bigger)

To boost employee engagement, explore different models like Gallup Q12, SHRM, and Aon Hewitt. These frameworks offer insights into what motivates employees by breaking down engagement into measurable elements. By identifying your team's specific engagement drivers, you can tailor strategies to meet their needs. Whether it's enhancing communication, recognizing achievements, or providing growth opportunities, using these models helps pinpoint effective approaches to create a more motivated and productive workplace.

Clarifying what employee engagement truly means is foundational. It's about more than just job satisfaction; it encompasses emotional commitment and discretionary effort towards organizational goals. Familiarizing oneself with various models and drivers helps in identifying key areas for improvement. Employee engagement surveys provide valuable insights into the current state of engagement within the organization. Choosing the right survey tool based on organizational size and maturity ensures accurate data collection. Surveys like Gallup or AON can provide comprehensive assessments and benchmarks for comparison. Once survey results are obtained, it's essential to analyze them to identify specific drivers that require attention.

While there are prominent employee engagement models out there (often attached to ready-to-go surveys), you may be best served by taking a more tailored approach. Engage For Success note that a bespoke approach to measuring engagement is likely to provide the most accurate measurement. While there are common drivers of what engages people, the specific key drivers for YOUR people may differ, so it could pay to use a more flexible model, and to tailor survey questions to fit your specific context.

Reading and analysing employee engagement surveys are crucial for every organization. These surveys give you insight into how many employees are actively contributing to the development of an organization. I suggest that these surveys should be carefully evaluated to achieve positive outcomes. For the areas which are having a downfall, employee engagement teams should be formulated to measure key KPIs. This process should be done every quarter as employee opinions keep changing regularly.

You can view engagement as an "outcome". Most measures of engagement include questions about pride and advocacy, for example, which are hard to tackle directly. The other topics you measure in your survey can be viewed as "enablers". These should include more actionable questions about manager effectiveness, teamwork, communication, learning, etc. Key driver analysis (multiple regression) is a way of understanding which of these enablers have the biggest potential impact on engagement. You can then zero in on the specific actions to take.

Nick Lynn's contribution (see above) is excllent on this. If I can add some extra thoughts: 1. The purpose of measurement is to make a decision. So ask yourself, why are we measuring this? What decision to we want to make? 2. Sharing the results without photoshopping them is important to do. People must be able to access the results clearly. 3. But data without narrative is detached from the decision you want to make. So you need to then suggest what your interpretation of the data is, for the purpose of your decisions. This means: 4. Provide a roadmap of action. 5. And, MAKE SURE YOU DO IT!!!

Build employee survey results into your people dashboard. What gets measured is valued. Examine the results in the context of other people metrics and track progress on employee experience quality improvement projects and programs.

Prioritize selecting and nurturing the right individuals for management roles. Recognize that the employee-manager relationship is pivotal in driving engagement. By ensuring that competent and empathetic leaders are in place, companies lay the foundation for a positive work environment. These managers foster trust, open communication, and support, which are vital for employee engagement. Additionally, provide ongoing training and support to managers, equipping them with the skills needed to effectively lead and inspire their teams. Ultimately, investing in the development of strong managerial relationships enhances communication and trust among employees, fostering a positive work environment.

The best practices of engagement, whatever model, come down to these factors: 1. Clear communication of expectations 2. Enjoyable action of their work 3. Useful transformation in their lives as a result

Dominance Analysis is a method you can use to evaluate the relative importance of predictors / "engagement drivers". It allows for a direct comparison of relative importance, rather than relying on inferred measures.

Leaders and managers should provide opportunities for employees to get to know each other personally - to help build teams - and foster a sense of belonging. Sometimes these opportunities should move beyond the water cooler and off site - in-person or online. Survey the employees to find out what types of offsite activities they might be interested in and try not to assume. For example, a lone female in a non-traditional role was working in a male dominated workplace. They were so used to doing "guy"-things that they didn't think to ask her before booking a trip for the team to a sporting event, where she didn't really feel she fit in.

Keep the extrinsic and intrinsic linked. Use EVP to find out what's really important to your employees, then use the approach to follow up and connect with their Why, their goals and purpose.

Engagement is mostly determined at the team level. So it's about managers learning what motivates each person in their team And ASKING will quite simply get answers to this

Make sure that employees are adequately challenged! As a gifted child, I found school painful because I was bored to despair most of the time. My experience in workplaces has been similar. Rarely have I encountered either a teacher or a manager who understood the importance of providing "enrichment." In the workplace, as in the classroom, that means assigning tasks that lead the doer into their stretch zone where they can enter into a flow state and achieve maximum productivity. The more opportunities you can provide for employees at different levels of competence to find their flow, the more engaged they'll become.