This is a guest blog by Jessica Robinson
Your organization’s success is undoubtedly the number one aspiration you hold close to your heart. One of the most fundamental requirements for this aspiration to come true is support from your workforce. Your employees are the building blocks of your company. Without them taking the initiative for your organization’s success, your company cannot prosper.
But what does it take to get such support from your employees? Well, it’s merely their emotional connection to your company. If your employees are emotionally connected to your organization, they are naturally inclined toward ensuring the best for it. Further, employee engagement is a business strategy to help your employees get emotionally involved in your company.
Here Are Six Useful Ideas for Employee Engagement:
1. Celebrate Your Employees
This is one of the simplest, yet most effective ideas for employee engagement. Now, you may ask, what does it mean to celebrate your employees? It means to make your employees feel loved and special for who they are and what they do.
How can you do that? You can do that easily with simple gestures of appreciation and recognition. You can send little thank-you cards to your employees, appreciation emails, or recognize them during office meetings.
All these things can make them feel special and help them develop an emotional connection with your company.
2. Encourage Lunchtime Get-Togethers and Conversations
Good employee relationships play a crucial role in employee engagement. If your employees have friendly, cordial relationships with each other, they are more likely to feel emotionally connected to your company too. To engage your employees, cultivate good relationships among them, and the best way to do this is to encourage lunchtime get-togethers and conversions among your employees. You can make it a norm for everyone to gather together for lunch.
3. Reward Your Employees With Some Time off From Work
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We have all heard that saying, haven’t we? The same is true for adults, but with a little variation. It is that all work and no relaxation makes us dull. If your employees work continuously and don’t get enough peace, they are likely to feel irritated, frustrated, and bored. How can they get emotionally involved in your company when all this stress exists? They cannot!
This implies that you should let them enjoy some time off from work to relax. For example, if some employees perform well throughout the week, you can give them an extra half-day off on the weekend. By doing so, you can make your employees feel happy, joyous, and valued. As a result, they’ll perform even better at work, which will ultimately take your company closer to success.
4. Help Your Employees Find Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance is one of the essential needs we all have in today’s world. After all, work is just a part of life and not life itself. Now, imagine if your employees find work-life balance in their lives — how would that impact their performance? It will get better. They’ll fall in love with your company because working there doesn’t make them compromise their personal life.
Further, when they are in love with your company, how can they not give their best input and plan to take your company to greater heights of success? To engage your employees, help them find the right work-life balance. For this, you can offer flexible working hours and remote working opportunities.
5. Instill Some Fun in the Work Environment
Employees naturally perform better in companies where the work environment is filled with fun. This is quite obvious, as fun keeps our inner child alive and makes us bubble with energy and enthusiasm. What else can your employees want if you provide them with the opportunity to have fun at work? Even if they sometimes find working monotonous, they will still try to give their best because the fun they will have later on keeps them excited.
One of the most effective ways to get your workforce involved in your company is to instill some fun in the work environment. Conduct at least one fun activity every day, and help your employees get in touch with their inner child — the source of immense creativity and enthusiasm.
6. Focus On Employee Comfort
If you are an employee, won’t you naturally be emotionally connected toward the company which puts the best efforts forth to ensure your comfort? Your answer will certainly be yes! If you are comfortable in your workplace, what else do you need? You’ll love being in your workplace and be intrinsically motivated to give your best. The same is true for your employees. If you offer them the best comfort in the workplace, they’ll naturally work for your company’s success.
Now, what does comfort mean exactly? It means that your employees are provided with all the necessary things we need as human beings: good infrastructure, comfortable working space, respect, cordial treatment, and so on. In the presence of this comfort, your employees will naturally get involved in your company and try to help it grow by leaps and bounds.
Employee engagement helps you get your employees emotionally invested in your company. When your employees are emotionally connected to your company, they are intrinsically motivated to give their best every day and ensure success. So, to ensure your company’s growth, try to engage your workforce with the ideas mentioned above.
I wish you all the very best and success in your endeavors.
About the Author Jessica Robinson
“If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” These words by Marc Anthony are perfectly apt for Jessica Robinson. She has been serving as a content manager at ‘The Speaking Polymath’ for around 10 years but still feels the same passion for her work which she felt on the very first day. You can connect with Jessica on LinkedIn here, view her blog here and contact her here.
We would love to hear any questions you might have or stories you might share about effective ideas for employee engagement.
Please leave your comments, feedback or questions in the section below.
To your success,
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success
