Employees are what drive your business to success, but they’ll need to be engaged to do that. That can often be much harder to achieve than many people would want. At the same time, finding the right ways to improve employee engagement can seem quite complicated. It shouldn’t be.
Five top strategies can be recommended, as they’ll be much easier to use than you’d think. That’s despite the large impact they’ll have on your employee engagement. Using them offers more than a few benefits, including:
- Improving employee morale
- Boosting productivity
- Increasing employee retention
With that, it’s worth diving into the best ways to improve employee engagement, with five top options standing out. Focusing on the employee experience with this is recommended, and it’s worth diving into how you can do this.
Ways To Improve Employee Engagement: 5 Top Options
1. Plan Company Outings
Not all ways to improve employee engagement focus on increasing your employees’ workloads. Sometimes, it’s worth getting them away from their desks. Company outings are one of the more notable ways of doing this. There are more than a few things you can do for this, such as:
- Company dinners
- Nights away
- Virtual game nights
While you’ll need to adapt these to your employees’ preferences, they’re more than worth considering. Your employees will feel refreshed and happier because of it, and they’ll end up being more engaged at work as a result.
2. Encourage Passion Projects
Everyone wants to feel as though they’re having an impact in their role. If you’re too restrictive on what your employees do, they mightn’t have this feeling. You can work around this by encouraging passion projects related to their role or the company itself. Focus on what your employees are interested in with this.
Give them the time and resources to work on these passion projects. While this could mean spending less time on their actual jobs, it’ll keep them more interested and engaged in their entire workload. It could even end up with them putting the extra effort in to benefit your company.
3. Reward Top Performers
You’ll want your employees to go above and beyond in their roles, but that mightn’t be possible without some kind of motivation. Their paycheck would just be enough to get them to do their job to expectations, but you might want them to do more than that. By rewarding top performers, you can do exactly that.
Monetary bonuses are the most notable ways of doing this, but it could also be worth considering a few non-financial options. The better you reward your employees, the more engaged they’ll be in their work. They’ll want to earn these rewards, so they’ll put more work in to do so.
4. Create Resource Groups
Resource groups make it easier for your employees to do their jobs. Usually representing marginalized or under-represented groups, it’s usually voluntary for your employees to take part in these. You can use these to create a greater sense of community within your business and make employees feel more valued.
They can make suggestions for improvements while giving your employees a voice. They can take the lead in developing and implementing these changes, and they’ll be much more engaged in the rest of their work because of it. While this could mean making company-wide changes, it’ll be more than worth it.
5. Set Up Volunteer Activities
Everyone wants to work for a company that actually cares about their community and the planet. Donating to charitable causes is a great way to improve employee morale, especially if they’re the ones choosing the charities. It could be worth going beyond this by setting up volunteer opportunities.
Take the time to find out which local charities your employees support and see if there are any ways you can set up opportunities with them. Even scheduling a certain amount of time off purely so your employees can take part in these can be enough to boost their overall engagement at work.
Ways To Improve Employee Engagement: Wrapping Up
There are multiple ways to improve employee engagement you can take advantage of. Some of these will be more effective and practical than others, making them worth focusing on first. It doesn’t need to be a long and complicated process, however. It’s just a matter of knowing what you’re doing.
Encouraging passion projects, planning company outings, creating resource groups, and similar tips will all help with this. While this takes a bit of an upfront investment, the improvement you’ll see in your company is more than worth it.
