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The Practical Guide to Employee Engagement

Why Does It Matter?

Let’s start with why employee engagement is important.

Your team is hustling eight hours a day, five days a week, to do its job and do it right. Creating an engaging work environment can go a long way toward improving employee loyalty and satisfaction, which, in turn, results in a higher quality of work and a more positive work environment.

You may be looking into employee engagement activities for any number of reasons. Maybe you’re looking to increase productivity in your office. Maybe you want to facilitate a more creative, connected team or reduce employee turnover.

Whatever your reason is, there is one important thing you need to remember: Employee engagement is about commitment. Think about all of the great bosses you’ve had, or rather, think about all of the not-so-great bosses you’ve had. If your managers had been more engaging, do you think you might have had a better work environment and bought into your company’s values and goals?

Employees are engaged when they possess a high level of commitment to their work, the company, and its goals. This also breeds a higher level of accountability within your organization. Employees who are engaged with their managers and coworkers are more likely to perform better because they don’t want to let their team down.

Studies have found that engaged employees are the key to achieving business goals, including:

Employee engagement is difficult to achieve. Research shows that only one in three employees are engaged. HR professionals can overcome this challenge by taking a fresh approach and using new tools that transform employee engagement in the workplace.

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The Practical Guide to Employee Engagement | Pingboard

Chapter 1

Demonstrating the Value of Employee Engagement

Engaging your workforce requires a focus on enhancing the employee experience. To develop a solid commitment to their work, people need to have positive interactions and form lasting bonds with others.

See People as Hearts, Not Resources

Demonstrating the value of employee engagement requires looking at people differently and understanding the experiences and work conditions that drive their commitment.

Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia, says that understanding employee engagement requires seeing people as “hearts,” not as resources. Silver renamed the HR department as the “People and Experience team,” a move that demonstrates the company’s focus on creating more authentic, positive experiences at work. Those experiences, in turn, enable employees to give and be their best.

When you focus on people, their experiences at work, and what matters most to them, you learn what it takes to keep them engaged. Only by examining the top drivers of employee engagement can you hope to move the needle in a positive direction.

Employee engagement ideas:

  • Regular feedback and recognition: The words “thank you” have a powerful impact. Employees are more likely to give their best when they know their effort and results are appreciated and recognized. Recognition need not be only in the form of a promotion or raise. It can take many forms, from a shout-out in a staff meeting to an email acknowledging an employee’s hard work.
  • Opportunities for skill development: Employees are energized by learning opportunities that support their career aspirations and build their confidence. Support for employee growth and development demonstrates that the organization cares about them, encouraging employees to also care more about the organization and its goals.
  • Positive work relationships: An SHRM study found that relationships with coworkers were one of the top five drivers of employee engagement. When people have opportunities to connect with coworkers, they also connect with the broader company.
  • Communication and collaboration: In today’s interconnected world, effective and frequent communication is a requirement for company survival and growth. It’s easier to build engagement when individuals and teams share information, ideas, and resources. Developing a culture of collaboration helps encourage transparency and trust, two necessary ingredients for engagement.

With a clear understanding of the key drivers of engagement, you’ll need to make the case for introducing the right tools to measure and improve engagement. Social networking, e-learning, and fun, unstructured activities offer unique opportunities for employees to develop connections and build a deep sense of commitment to the organization.

"When you focus on people, their experiences at work, and what matters most to them, you learn what it takes to keep them engaged."

 

 

Chapter 2

How to Improve Employee Engagement

A creative mix of activities and technology solutions helps improve employee engagement over time. Opportunities to share, connect, and collaborate help employees develop deep ties to the organization, their team, and their work.

Measure Employee Engagement, but Then Improve It

Like with most things in life, you need to understand the current level of engagement before you can take concrete steps to improve it. Measuring engagement is necessary for knowing where the organization is, where it needs to be, and how much progress you’re making over time.

For starters, look introspectively at why you think your organization might be failing at employee engagement.

Learn more about the reasons you might be failing at employee engagement here.

This is where employee engagement surveys come in. Ask your team about what they like and dislike about their work environment and how they want to be engaged and rewarded. This feedback can help you understand how people feel about their team, their manager, or even the cafeteria food. This feedback will help you focus your employee engagement activities in the right areas.

Collecting employee feedback is useful, but simply asking the right questions won’t improve your morale and productivity. It’s what you do with that information that helps you get down to the business of actually improving employee engagement. Demonstrate a genuine interest in your employees’ experiences at work.

Regular survey follow-up is a must. Research shows that employees are more engaged when the company takes action after asking for feedback. A Quantum Workplace survey found that employees whose managers follow up with them after a survey are 12 times more likely to be engaged.

Armed with this fresh perspective on enhancing employee experiences, you can start to build a culture that offers plentiful opportunities for employees to get to know one another, have fun, and pursue their passions. You can also enlist the support of culture champions and promote activities that bring people together and build enthusiasm.

Employee engagement activities and tools include:

  • On-demand access to coworkers: A live org chart that syncs with contacts and calendars allows employees to connect on a deeper level than email alone. Try setting up a mentor program or interdepartmental communication opportunities.
  • Fun, unstructured activities: Scavenger hunts, biking outings, and other activities help people build relationships with employees inside and outside their work group.
  • Self-directed learning: E-learning empowers employees to pursue relevant skill building at their own pace, and gamified tools make learning fun.
  • An outlet for sharing: Employees bond over shared experiences with the help of social platforms such as GaggleAMP, Yammer, or a live org chart that lets them populate their profile with interests and fun facts.
  • Frequent communication: Regular feedback and one-on-ones build trust and encourage individuals to feel more invested in their work.

Check out even more employee engagement ideas here.

Improving engagement requires more than conducting an employee engagement survey or making one-off improvements that fade with time. Employees will be motivated to do their best work when they have free access to people and information, and when they have opportunities to share their passions and interests with others.

Employee engagement software also helps you avoid a drop-off in employee engagement. Employees will notice if you make a big push but neglect the follow-through—leading to unhappiness in the workplace, employee turnover, and decreased productivity.

"A Quantum Workplace survey found that employees whose managers follow up with them after a survey are 12 times more likely to be engaged. "

 

 

Chapter 3

Employee Engagement Software

After you develop a plan to engage your employees, you’re going to need some help keeping up with your initiatives. That’s where technology comes in. 

Employee engagement software is specifically designed to help you effectively implement employee engagement activities and monitor your overall employee satisfaction. This modern way to bring employees together to collaborate and learn is most effective when it is easy to use, integrates with your existing systems, and provides up-to-the-minute employee data that keeps your team engaged and informed.

The Benefits of Employee Engagement Software

Employee engagement software helps organizations measure, manage, and ultimately improve employee engagement. Engagement software is often designed to focus on a particular area of the employee experience—for example, employee feedback, performance management, rewards and recognition, or organizational structure and alignment.

Not all employee engagement software is equally effective. A software solution has the most positive effect in the workplace when it offers:

  • Flexibility: is customizable for use by leaders, HR, and employees
  • Integrations: works in concert with other systems
  • Mobility: can be accessed from anywhere
  • Shareability: has broad applicability for the entire organization
  • Support for collaboration and communication: syncs with calendars, contacts, and collaboration platforms

A live org chart is an ideal solution for improving employee engagement. It possesses the flexibility required by today’s complex and growing organizations and gives employees access to information that allows them to connect and build relationships. 

Using a live org chart to house employee profiles gives your employees a way to share information about themselves (think favorite ice cream flavor, pet’s name, or special skills), and managers a way to learn about and recognize members of their team. 

By integrating with your HRIS and payroll systems, the live org chart is always up to date with structural changes, contact information, out-of-office notices, and more. It also supports collaboration and communication by allowing leaders to work together on different versions of the org chart for workforce planning or reorganization purposes.

Using Employee Engagement Software to Avoid the “Who’s on First, What’s on Second, I Don’t Know Is on Third” Bit

A live org chart is a versatile tool for the whole organization that helps facilitate a more connected workforce. Here are just a few of the things you can do to build employee engagement with a live org chart:

  • Embed it into the company intranet or an internal learning library. Use your org chart as a way to create a sense of community in your organization. For example, your team members with dogs may want to connect. Maybe your employees want to know what to bring in on their teammate’s birthday.
  • Use it to clearly illustrate the structure of teams that have dual managers, dotted lines, or shared accountabilities. Being transparent about the chain of command for approvals, special projects, and day-to-day reporting will help make your employees more confident. 
  • Share it with new and prospective employees as part of the onboarding process. Being the newest employee can be hard. Using your live org chart in the onboarding process can help new employees better assimilate and understand where they fit in the bigger picture. 
  • Use it as a tool for helping individuals and teams understand how they align with one another and the broader organization. This will help you demonstrate that each employee is a valued part of the team rather than just a cog in a machine. 

When employees have opportunities to make interpersonal connections within and beyond their team, a culture develops in which they can give their best and be their best at work. A live org chart supports engagement by creating new opportunities for collaboration, relationship building, and learning.

Chapter 4

Take The Next Step

Improving employee engagement requires understanding the hearts of employees and providing experiences that encourage them to give their best effort at work. A live org chart supports team building, collaboration, and deeper employee connections. From there, the opportunities for increased engagement are endless.

Pingboard helps companies build a culture in which employees are empowered and engaged. A modern alternative to the static org chart, Pingboard helps you build the culture you want and need. You can check out what customers are telling us about Pingboard and read more reviews here

Pingboard is the org chart with superpowers. Get in touch with us today to talk about your employee engagement initiatives.




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The Practical Guide to Employee Engagement | Pingboard