Solving for disengagement may seem like an intimidating task for your client. After all, they’ve just been hit by the reality that their employees aren’t as engaged as they thought—not to mention potentially blindsided by the revelation that the reason for disengagement boils down to issues within the organization itself.
Have your client take a deep breath. Remind them: It’s all fixable. Here are five easy ways to boost your client’s employee engagement today:
1. Get transparent.
Encourage your clients to be open with their employees about the goings-on of the organization: What’s going right and makes leadership proud, what’s causing concern, and what direction leadership wants to take. Providing transparency will help assuage employee anxiety, as well as open up opportunities for employees to become more involved in and take ownership of critical organizational initiatives.
Transparency doesn’t just have to pertain to what’s going right or what’s keeping leadership up at night. There are other ways your client can become more transparent with employees.
Culture
Your client no doubt has a culture—whether it’s long been established, is undergoing some changes, or is newly-forming. Regardless of the development stage, encourage your client to be transparent in its cultural values. The more these values are communicated and reinforced, the stronger the culture will become. Employees will see this as a positive force in their work experience, mobilizing them to become conduits of said culture and driving them toward engagement.
Feedback
As a rule, a problem can’t be fixed unless it’s known. In a disengaged culture, it’s easy to tiptoe around feedback, worrying about the implications of it being delivered or received the wrong way. But encourage your client to make feedback— both positive and constructive—a part of their day-to-day. The 2018 People Management Study found that employees prefer to receive feedback more frequently than less frequently. Regular feedback offers employees an opportunity to take ownership of their performance and become more engaged in their roles.
2. Provide behavioral data.
Having your client leadership dedicate themselves to transparency means they’ll also need to dedicate themselves to self-awareness and improvement. This can’t be done without data. Behavioral insights into what drives employees are crucial elements to mobilizing them to deliver results. When your client has the right employees in the right roles—leveraging their natural strengths and abilities—this drives engagement.
As important as it is to use behavioral data to put the right people in the right roles, your client can immediately impact their employee engagement by sharing that behavioral data. In fact, in a recent employee engagement survey, The Predictive Index® found employees who were provided with their own behavioral data were more engaged at work than those who were left unaware.
3. Reward performance.
When your client has high-performing employees in the right roles, engagement seems like a given. But it is possible for employees to perform well without being engaged in the business. Performance for the sake of performance can’t be sustained. An easy way to avoid this high performing, low engagement conundrum is through rewards and recognition.
Different employees like to be rewarded differently. Have your client leverage their employee behavioral data to figure out the best ways to reward each individual. When employees feel they are cared about by the organization, they’re more likely to be engaged. There are plenty of ways to reward and recognize employees on an individual or team level, so encourage your client to do so and empower them with some ideas.
4. Invest in learning and development.
Employees who perform well will sooner or later look for development opportunities. They may even be doing so right now—and outside your client organization.
An easy way to nip that disengagement, and potentially expensive and disruptive turnover, in the bud is through immediate investment in learning and development.
Learning and development opportunities can seem like a big-picture solution. But your client can take immediate steps to promote a culture of continuous development by implementing a personal development meeting cadence between managers and direct reports. Empowering managers through education on how to support employee growth can be a quick seminar or meeting that will have a trickle-down effect within the organization.
When employees feel invested in, they’re more likely to return that investment to the organization. These learning opportunities not only increase employee loyalty but also groom employees for growth opportunities as the organization evolves. Your client should work to find ways to create clear career pathing that will encourage employee development.
5. Prioritize employee experience.
Above all, your client can easily drive employee engagement by prioritizing employee experience. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but being transparent with employees about the organization’s dedication to improving their work experience will do wonders for morale—and eventually drive engagement.
So, where should your client start? There are plenty of ways to show employees their experience matters. Survey employees and find out what’s important to them. Would they rather have more flexibility than more money? Would they benefit from a better onboarding experience and training path?
The solution can even be as simple as company-sponsored activities that appeal to employees’ interests.
At the end of the day, employees who feel valued and whose experiences are prioritized will more likely be engaged and perform at a high level, driving business success for your client.
All of this can be started today.
Though it may seem daunting, your client can easily get started on these engagement activities immediately. They’re simple tweaks that can grow into impactful changes on the organization as a whole. And that kind of positive impact cannot be undersold.
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