It’s reported by Gallup that 85% of people don’t like their jobs – a fact that should concern employers when retaining talent is often intrinsically linked with business success.
Having engaged employees can improve productivity and ultimately your business. Here we look at 4 ways to improve employee engagement.
- Improve outdated HR processes
HR systems and processes can be cumbersome to learn and to manage; they may be outdated, slow, confusing or a mix of all three.
Processes such as logging leave requests or performance reviews can be simplified when you use financial and workforce management tools systems like SAP SuccessFactors or Workday . These tools can automate processes as well as provide valuable data that HR can use to help inform the business.
- Optimize online meeting frequency
Since 2020, a much larger proportion of workers have been working remotely around the world. This has led to many more virtual meetings over Zoom, MS Teams, and the like.
It has however led to the phenomenon of ‘Zoom fatigue’, where people are drained mentally from virtual meetings. The lack personal interaction makes it difficult to read non-verbal communication and the meetings seems less effective.
To help combat this, only schedule virtual meetings when they are really necessary. Could a quick instant message or email answer your question rather than a 30 minute video chat.
Also, if you must have a meeting, set it for 15 minutes, 25 or 55 minutes. The reason having shorter and/or meetings that don’t go to the full hour or half hour focus the mind and encourage people to be more productive.
As many people now work with colleagues around the world, if you must meet, be mindful of time zones. It isn’t easy to schedule meetings that can accommodate everyone. If you have to have regular meetings, try and be fair by varying the times so that it is fair for everyone.
- Remember to offer training and career progression
When focusing on day-to-day tasks, training and career progression can sometimes be sidetracked.
Offering training courses (both online and in-person, when able) for employees and encouraging them to schedule time to do them can help them feel more engaged.
For some a lack of career progression can be a demotivating factor. Having transparency on where an employee can potentially progress can be a boost.
Setting clear targets can make employees can feel more engaged. By doing so they can see the direction and milestones they need to hit to progress in their careers. This can make an unfulfilling job more palatable if they can see that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Naturally, not every job has a clear career path, but giving your employees opportunities to train or do placements elsewhere in the business can help to improve engagement.
- Focus on manager training
It’s vitally important the people managers have the correct skills to manage people. Many people have experienced a bad manager at some stage of their career. People management is an art form and what works for one manager and employee may not for another.
Offering training and support for people managers can help to ensure that they are effectively managing their teams. Using an HCM system like those offered by SuccessFactors or Workday means this can be part of an ongoing continuous improvement cycle.
Continuous performance management can support both employees and line managers manage performance and improve engagement.
