For employee engagement to be high in your business, you need the right conditions. Studies have shown that a good company culture can increase revenue and, although everybody in the business has a part to play, your Senior Leaders are ultimately responsible for setting out the culture which means they need to create a culture in which engagement is a priority.

Managers have a direct impact on the levels of employee engagement and employees with highly engaged managers are more likely to be engaged than employees who have actively disengaged managers. Because of this it’s important that the Senior Leaders in every business lead by example. This means that as well as managing employees on a day to day basis Managers also need to take on a coaching role to ensure that they understand each employee’s strengths and help them use those in their role. Employees who feel their manager is truly invested in them are much more likely to be engaged. 

Don’t underestimate the power of recognising your employees’ contributions and seeking out their opinions as this can also help them feel empowered and engaged. Managers who talk to their employees regularly (for example through structured review process or regular 1-2-1 meetings) help to create an environment where engagement is high, directly impacting on overall engagement levels.

It’s not just managers that have a role to play, employees also have a responsibility to be open and honest about how engaged they are to ensure that a business can make adjustments where necessary. As an employer you need to ensure that employees have the time and space to reflect and are provided with the correct environment to share their thoughts with their manager. The overall aim here in any business is to create a positive feedback loop in which employees and their managers find ways to overcome challenges and harness opportunities, ultimately increasing employee satisfaction.

Remember that employee engagement isn’t a one-time thing, yet we still see employers running an annual survey and not following through on any actions. It’s unrealistic to expect a survey which is run annually to capture an employee’s thoughts for a full 12-month period. Employees responses to surveys can be heavily influenced by external factors completely unrelated to the business, such as a late night, difficult family circumstances or even a bad commute to work on the day that they complete the survey.

It’s for this reason that you should measure employee engagement on a more frequent basis as this will help to mitigate any skew and give a much better overview of the levels of engagement within the business. Just be careful not to fall into the trap of ‘death by surveying’, and make sure that any interim surveys are short and succinct so that you get maximum response levels from your employees.

One of the best ways to keep on top of employee engagement levels and to ensure open and honest feedback is to work with an external provider so that employees feel that they can be completely honest in their feedback. 

And that’s where we come in. We play an essential role for our clients in ensuring that engagement initiatives run smoothly in their business - by managing the process from start to end, providing analysis of their employee engagement results and giving guidance on the right tools and learning opportunities to make improvements across the business. We act as facilitators by supporting the business and providing you with the appropriate tools to allow you to reflect on, measure and boost engagement across the business.

So if you’re not already measuring employee engagement in your business contact us today for an initial chat and to see how we can help.