Revving Up Employee Engagement
Strong employee engagement remains among the most competitive factors for recruiting top talent and keeping high-performing employees. Leaders who can inspire and maintain a company culture that promotes employee engagement see positive results in business outcomes and overall job satisfaction.
To create a winning strategy, L&D leaders must gather insights from their teams and uncover ways to keep employees motivated, heard, and interactive in each unique position. Creating an employee engagement committee is an impactful way to keep your work culture in check. Let’s walk through some ways teams can put together an employee engagement plan and ensure it succeeds.
The Importance of Employee Engagement in the Workplace
What is employee engagement? It can be defined in many ways. Because each organization is unique, team leaders should define this component in alignment with their core values and motivating factors/incentives. Gallup characterizes engaged employees as “those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace. Sadly, in a recent poll, only 35% of employees in the U.S. fall in the “engaged” category. To help with this deficiency, many organizations look to Employee Engagement Committees to jump-start their employee satisfaction strategies and discover how to gather feedback on improving their company culture.
Employee Engagement Committees
An Employee Engagement Committee (EEC) is a group of employees within an organization responsible for promoting employee engagement and motivation among the workforce. The primary role of an EEC is to identify areas where employee engagement can be improved, develop strategies to address these areas, and implement these initiatives throughout the organization.
These committees aim to create a positive, productive workplace culture that values employee contributions, encourages collaboration, and fosters a sense of community. Many companies have difficulty keeping employees engaged and motivated, especially in a remote work environment. When you throw in the complexity of organization size, and limited resources, L&D leaders need a strong game plan to keep employees motivated in their career path and connected with the problems their company helps solve.
The Challenges of Employee Engagement in Large Companies
At large companies, employee engagement can be a challenge. Factors such as a lack of connection with the company mission, high turnover rates, and difficulty in measuring engagement can make it difficult for employers to create an effective employee engagement strategy.
Lack of employee connection with the company mission can negatively impact productivity and the company’s overall success. Employees who feel connected to the company mission lack motivation and commitment, leading to lower job satisfaction, higher turnover rates, and decreased productivity.
To address engagement issues at larger or rapid-growth organizations, here are a few steps to help employees connect with the company mission.
Communicate the mission clearly: Companies should regularly share the mission statement and reinforce their core values through internal communications, such as company-wide emails, newsletters, and meetings.
Connect employees to the mission: Companies should help each employee understand how their work contributes to the problems it is helping solve and the people who are directly impacted by their work. This can be done by setting clear goals and expectations for each employee’s role and regularly recognizing and rewarding employees for their contributions.
Instill a culture of purpose: Companies can enable a culture of purpose by creating a sense of shared values and goals. This can be achieved through regular team-building activities, training, and development programs that emphasize the importance of the company mission.
Lead by example: Company leaders should lead by example and demonstrate their commitment to the company mission. This includes regularly communicating the mission and core values to employees, incorporating the mission into decision-making processes, and ensuring that the company’s actions align with its mission.
Combatting High Employee Turnover Rates
High turnover rates can have several negative impacts, including increased recruitment costs, decreased productivity, reduced morale, and loss of knowledge and skills. Poor or inexperienced management is one of the most common reasons for high employee turnover rates. When employees feel that their managers are not supportive, please don’t listen to them, or don’t provide them with adequate feedback; they are more likely to leave.
L&D leaders should feel confident that managers feel empowered, fulfilled, and competent in the core skills necessary to lead their teams. One of the best ways employees feel supported is through validation and public praise for a well-done job. For example, 65 percent of employees say they would be happier if they got more recognition at work from their managers.
Growth opportunities for lowing employee turnover
Another high contributor to high employee turnover is a lack of growth opportunities. Employees who feel they are not learning new skills or advancing in their roles may become dissatisfied and look for new opportunities elsewhere. In conjunction with career and professional development is a lack of competitive pay and benefits. Employees must feel their hard work is justified and contributions are appreciated through a transparent incentive package and opportunities to advance their earnings and quality of life.
Employees want to work for companies that align with their values and beliefs. However, when they feel that the company culture is not a good fit, they may be more likely to leave, resulting in frequent turnover issues.
By taking active measures to improve employee engagement, organizations can increase employee satisfaction and retention, ultimately leading to better productivity, innovation, and profitability.
Difficulty in Measuring Employee Engagement
Measuring employee engagement can be challenging because it involves various psychological, behavioral, and emotional factors. Here are some of the reasons why measuring employee engagement can be difficult:
- Multi-dimensional
Employee engagement is a multifaceted construct that involves various factors, including job satisfaction, commitment, motivation, and loyalty. Measuring each of these factors requires different tools and techniques.
- Context-Specific
Measuring engagement for each employee can vary depending on the industry, organization, and job role. Therefore, measuring engagement requires understanding the specific context in which it occurs.
- Bias in Engagement Reporting
Teams often measure employee engagement programs through self-report surveys. As a result, employees may feel pressured to provide socially acceptable responses or respond in a way that reflects their current mood rather than their engagement level.
- Lack of Consensus from Each Team
Everyone must be on the same page in their evaluation process for measuring employee engagement. If inconsistency or lack of consensus occurs, this can lead to division amongst team members or a lack of knowledge and understanding from each person’s point of view.
Despite these challenges, measuring employee engagement is crucial for organizations that want to improve employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity. To overcome these challenges, organizations should use qualitative and quantitative methods to measure employee engagement and tailor their approach to the specific context and goals of their organization.
The Role of the Employee Engagement Committee
Employee committees are responsible for building a solid company culture, facilitating communication between employees and management, and identifying and addressing employee engagement issues. Building a solid company culture is crucial for the success of any organization. A strong company culture can increase employee satisfaction, productivity, and engagement, while also promoting a positive brand image and attracting top talent. Here are some steps to build a strong company culture:
When running an effective Employee Engagement Committee, there are a few essential best practices to follow.
- Regular check-ins with employees to help employers get a better understanding of employee morale and job satisfaction.
- Encouraging employee input and feedback to help create a dialogue between employees and management.
- We are celebrating employee achievements to keep employees motivated and engaged.
Strong EECs understand how to best report any issues with their leadership teams and mitigate problems from the source. Human resource teams should have policies and procedures to address healthy conflict and growth opportunities for your company to promote clear boundaries and ways to resolve common issues in the workplace. For example, if employee satisfaction is identified as an improvement opportunity within your organization, bring this to your employee engagement committee to brainstorm ideas to get back on the right track.
Create a Positive Employee Engagement Plan at Your Organization
Employee engagement is the level of emotional commitment that employees have to their organization and their job. Engaged employees are passionate about their work, committed to the organization’s goals, and more likely to go above and beyond in their duties.
A high level of employee engagement commonly leads to multiple positive factors for your team, including higher retention rates, increased productivity, improved customer satisfaction, higher profitability, and better health and well-being for each employee.
Most learning leaders understand the main components of a healthy company culture and the impact of employee engagement on each team but need some help with implementation. Some key challenges of developing a comprehensive plan for these performance drivers are tracking engagement improvement and measuring shared training initiatives.
Hone makes tracking learning and operational improvement manageable and gathers effective feedback to measure your success. Easily facilitate your learning programs and show results to company stakeholders to create a lasting impact within your organization.
Gathering feedback and empowering your management teams is the best way to gauge your employee satisfaction. Interested in resources to help your management team feel more confident?
Check out our on-demand webinar – Confidence, Clarity, & Ease: A Guide For Emerging Leaders to Thrive.
