How to improve employee engagement in the office at senior level.

Everyone wants happy employees, but one connection that’s often missed is between employee satisfaction and employee engagement. Here I define employee engagement as the level of enthusiasm and dedication that an employee feels toward his organisation or team. The objective of employee engagement or work satisfaction goes beyond minimising employee turnover or controlling recruitment costs. For engaged employees, the job is far more than just a source of income. They’re eager to take on responsibilities, carry out their duties, and give you their best work. If we look around, you will see that your employees will fall into one of three categories of engagement:

• Deeply Engaged: The employee believes in the company, wants to improve their work, is willing to go the extra mile to help the organisation succeed, and is inspired by their leaders. Efficiency and enthusiasm are the hallmark traits of an engaged worker. These are the employees who often become your company’s high performers—those who are self-motivated, innovative, proactive and eager to learn new skills. Our experience tells us that these valuable achievers can deliver as much productivity as four average employees. A bonus is that these employees are often your company’s best ambassadors, speaking well of your business.
• Disengaged: The employee does the bare minimum of work, has little passion for their job, and views work as a trade of time for a steady income. Disengaged employees are often engaged workers who've lost their enthusiasm for one reason or another. But the good thing about this group of employees is that we can make them engaged with very little effort.
• Highly Disengaged: The employee expresses dissatisfaction with their job and spreads negativity throughout the organization, often dragging operational efficiency down with them. This group of employees is generally a cost to the company.

We often make a mistake by ignoring the managers or senior employees in our organisations by assuring that they are highly paid resources and, hence, they are bound to be self-motivated and engaged. It is to be remembered that employee engagement starts with management. Engaged managers are better at building teams of engaged employees. Good managers convey consistent expectations to their employees that are realistic, clear, and concise. It is the duty of the manager to clearly set the tone to increase employee engagement by coaching and encouraging employees, celebrating successes and proactively addressing challenges. This way, employees often follow suit, and thus they’re more productive, provide better customer service, and are less likely to leave a company. Engaged managers happen when your company’s leadership promotes effective communication, a culture of transparency, and policies that support the health and wellbeing of your workforce – at every level.?Consider the following strategies:?

1. Empower your managers to make more business decisions.?
2. When things go well, recognise and reward your managers.
3. Express your appreciation for your managers' efforts and leadership.?
4. Provide opportunities for your managers to learn new skills and advance their careers.
5. Give your managers the resources and time they need to do their jobs successfully.?
6. Continually audit that your managers’ abilities and skills are being put to good use.?
7. Effectively communicate decisions, company strategy, and company mission to managers.

A few initiatives or decisions that we must take or work upon to support employee engagement strategies can help the business owner develop a highly engaged workforce of happier, healthier, and more dedicated employees who make your business thrive. Here are some best practises for improving employee engagement.

Hire the right people: create job posting descriptions with specific language to attract the best candidates. Starting from the onboarding process, being transparent in your expectations about job responsibilities forms a solid foundation of engagement and a great employee experience.

• Build a strong company culture: A strong culture of trust and communication makes it more likely that employees will approach a manager to discuss why they are unhappy. With two-way communication built on trust and regular feedback, you’ll have better chances of motivating a disgruntled employee to become more engaged while creating a stronger work environment.
• Recognize and reward employees—You can foster employee engagement with a culture of gratitude. Not only does showing a little appreciation increase productivity, but people will continue to do the right things for the right reasons.
• Create a recognition programme: Praise doesn’t need to cost you. Everyday rewards initiatives like a handwritten note or thank-you email go a long way. Gift cards for a coffee, book, or lunch will be appreciated and can be more frequent than a more formal award.
• Provide opportunities for career advancement: Offer employees career advancement opportunities such as a mentor, a choice assignment, professional development training, or a promotion that reflects career progression. Such opportunities can help an engaged employee blossom into one of your top high-performers.
• Be flexible, adaptable, and transparent with your workforce—it's When a business owner models the company’s core values, employees will understand how to replicate them in the workplace. Sharing news while being flexible and adaptable not only helps the company through difficult times. It’s an opportunity to be a powerful role model for employees who may be struggling.
• Encourage all of your employees to be accountable—Fairness is a foundational concept in the workplace during good and bad times. When employees see that everyone is held accountable to a clear set of rules, a business owner will often have a better outcome when instituting cost-cutting measures, for example.
• Run team-building activities: Whether it’s a team lunch via teleconferencing or an in-person recreational activity, team-building helps employees make meaningful connections with their colleagues. Positive company morale and employee engagement often go hand in hand.
• Encourage employee engagement outside of the workplace: Giving back to the communities in which you do business can be rewarding for both you and your employees. Employee volunteer programmes can foster engagement by increasing feelings of commitment to the company they represent while helping the community.

With the above initiatives, we can see some improvement in the engagement rate of the employees and can measure employee activity and will see improvement in overall business growth. We can measure employee engagement with the following indicators:?

1. Create an employee engagement survey – we can ask about an employee’s engagement in a companywide anonymous survey or receive it in on-on-one sessions.?
2. Look at retention rates: If more employees are leaving than usual, conduct exit interviews to find out why.?
3. Examine productivity: If the company falls short of its productivity targets, a closer look may reveal a lack of optimal employee engagement.?
4. Create an internal focus group: include employees from various levels and departments, and consider using an outside, trained facilitator to gather feedback.?