Let’s talk about employee engagement ?? ?? ??

Let’s talk about employee engagement ?? ?? ??

What does employee engagement mean to you and the company you work in? The higher the employee engagement is, the more likely they are to stay longer, motivate others and support the company to achieve its goals.

For me, it is simple- employees should feel trusted, supported and motivated at work. Employee engagement is the strength of the connection employees feel towards the work they do, towards their teams and the company they work in.

The top 10 ways that the team and I have built employee engagement in the past few months at 200 Degrees Coffee Roasters are:

• Employee engagement survey- Employee engagement doesn’t always mean employee satisfaction or happiness, we have built our employee engagement to understand the emotional commitment our employees have to the company and their goals. Hearing honest feedback about how we can improve and measuring the success of how engaged they are, help build and drive employee engagement throughout the year. The important actions are for the company to follow up with the feedback and for the employees to feel that they have been heard. We are very grateful we have had a high employee engagement score throughout the years!
• Health and wellbeing support- We celebrated ‘Brew Monday’ in January which our colleagues had the opportunity to have a hot drink and a chat with our mental health first aider network. By having this time to talk, coupled with mental health and wellbeing resources and free access to the Calm app, we want to show our employees we really do care for all our employees’ health and wellbeing here.
• Business improvement groups- We have ongoing working groups where employees can give their feedback and have a voice on how we can support the company with: Wellbeing and Inclusion, Community and Outreach and Sustainability. We want our employees to understand their opinions matter.
• Onboarding process- We have redesigned our onboarding process so employees feel settled and connected to the company well ahead of their starting date. It is important to have an informative and effective onboarding process so that the employees can learn about their roles and our culture. They will have a warm friendly welcome from the team from day 1 when they start.
• Employee packs- As part of the onboarding process, we have also given employee packs to all our employees with company merchandise and of course more of our coffee to take home. This has helped our employees feel more related to our employee brand and provide them with the right tools to support them with their jobs.?Check out the photos of our teams enjoying their employee packs!
• General Manager and Senior Management Team meetings- We have held regular meetings with all our 18 General Managers (& growing!) to provide them with information on business updates, training, and to hear their feedback on what can be improved within the business. The General Managers are fundamental role models to our company and it is so important that they are engaged, to engage their teams. We also have regular senior management teams so we can support and cascade the business goals.
• High Performance Culture Training and Management training- We have provided our employees training sessions about how to perform in a high performance culture. Our Managing Director Stephen was fantastic at leading these sessions!?I also ran a 'how to handle difficult conversations' training session to give managers the much needed tools to how to handle sensitive subjects whilst giving experiences to remember for the employees.
• Competency Frameworks- We are about to launch competency frameworks for all employees to understand the key skills, behaviours and attitudes to have within their roles at 200 Degrees. It is so important that employees can see how to progress in their careers and the paths we have to grow and learn.
• Redesigning appraisal process- We are about to launch a newly designed appraisal process for all employees to have regular conversations with their managers structured around their performance and future in their roles. So often employees do not know what their expectations are of them from their managers, or the business goals and this is all linked to having a high performance culture which is something we pride ourselves for. The importance of regular career and development conversations shouldn't be underestimated. It's the simple things that can often make the biggest difference.
• Community activities- We often support with a range of community activities and this month we supported with litter picking. It’s great to get out of the workplace and give back to society, it is also is great to have team building activities with volunteering away days so we encourage all our employees to have 1 day of volunteering a year.?
• Celebrating work anniversary milestones- It is so important to celebrate employee achievements and commitments to the business such as work anniversaries. We have recently celebrated Di’s 10 year anniversary and she is such a key employee here in our company, congratulations again to Di! Employee retention and long service milestones seems to have reduced a lot more in recent years, so when our employees achieve these milestones this is a great sign of retention for the company which is a key indicator in how our employees are engaged.

Employee engagement isn’t just ticking boxes, but all this amazing work the team does creates a high performing, safe and inclusive culture that allows them to thrive in their journeys with trust and respect. I talk often about being your authentic self at work and this is something that our company prides itself on too- it's always a good thing when the employee values and company values align!

There are SO many more projects we are set to achieve as a company in the next few months, it is such an exciting time to drive even further employee engagement!

I would love to know the key projects you and your teams are working on to build employee engagement, please let me know- sharing is caring!