This is a contributed article from Kevin Marasco, the Chief Marketing Officer at Zenefits.
If your employees aren’t thriving, your business is struggling.
Are your employees engaged with their jobs?
If they’re like most American workers, the answer is a resounding “no.”
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace, only 33% of American workers are “involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace.”
Low employee engagement is costly. Research shows 63.3% of U.S. small businesses say retaining employees is actually harder than hiring them. As a result, U.S. employers spend $2.9 million per day for replacement workers.
That’s $1.1 billion per year.
Ouch.
Engaged employees do their best work while achieving business goals. They are more efficient and productive. So much so, that 71% of managers feel employee engagement is one of the most important factors in overall company success, and here’s why:
- Companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable
- Businesses with highly-engaged employees saw 41% less absenteeism and a 17% increase in productivity
- Engaged employees provide better customer service
While it’s clear that engaged employees are the key to a business’s success, it’s dismaying to see that the majority of workers aren’t engaged.
For the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that fuel our economy, the problem has been amplified as workers face the stress related to COVID-19, disrupted supply chains, forced office closures, or being part of a sudden distributed workforce.
The good thing is improving employee engagement isn’t costly and can be easily implemented. Here are 7 proven strategies and best practices to help boost your employee engagement.
1. Take care of employees’ well-being
In response to COVID-19, businesses have made supporting employees’ well-being a top priority. Many employers have expanded their well-being programs, to include telehealth, mental health services (e.g., subscriptions to meditation apps), offering virtual workout classes, or making changes to PTO policies to encourage time off.
Also keep in mind the work environment influences how employees feel. If you’re operating in a brick and mortar storefront, take a look at the inside of your business. Can you increase natural light, improve air quality (ventilation or air conditioning), or offer healthy snacks or drinks during break time?
Having an adequate stock of personal protective equipment (PPE), hand sanitizer, and cleaning supplies for employees will also make your workers and customers feel safe inside of your business.
2. Give employees a voice
Create a happier, more productive workforce by taking regular employee engagement surveys. Surveys help HR and people teams:
- Develop a better understanding of employee sentiment
- Understand what’s on your employee’s mind
- Take action from intuitive insights
The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money or time on surveys. An eNPS survey — which consists of one question about how employees feel about their job — is a quick way to gauge sentiment and determine what follow-up actions you need to take. Distribute this survey monthly to establish a trend line, and compliment it with a longer engagement survey given every 3-to-6 months. Ask follow-up questions like “What would it take for you to give the highest satisfaction score?”
3. Take action
While distributing surveys will make your employees feel heard, it’s meaningless unless you take action on the data you’ve collected.
Zenefits Employee Engagement Surveys offers a consolidated system where you can uncover the entire story on employee sentiment by tying together everything from compensation to performance feedback and goals. You can use benchmarking reports to see how you compare against industry standards, and drill down into demographics to advance culture and promote inclusivity.
4. Encourage collaboration
A collaborative workplace helps employees align around a shared vision and purpose. When employees understand the role they play in the organization — and how they help others — they are more likely to contribute.
Internally, we use a People Hub where employees can connect with each other and send mobile push notifications to relay important information quickly, such as schedule changes, office reopening plans, and safety protocols. We use this in conjunction with other collaboration tools, including Slack, Google Docs, and Asana.
While these tools make it easier to communicate, the key is to identify how each of these tools are used.
For example, your business may decide to use People Hub or a text message chain to announce shift changes or time-sensitive information that needs to be distributed ASAP.
For general communication, use Slack to talk with the team.
Google Drive can be used for file sharing and storing important documents, such as a copy of your employee handbook, company logos, and other digital assets, while Asana or Trello is used for task management, or breaking large projects down into manageable chunks.
5. Express gratitude
Recognition makes employees feel valued in a team, but it doesn’t always have to come from a manager. Receiving gratitude from a colleague shows employees their work is being valued and recognized by others.
This gratitude can come in many forms, and it doesn’t have to be formal. I close team meetings by having colleagues give “kudos” to someone who has been killing it. Simple gestures as a Slack message expressing your gratitude, or sending an email saying “thank you” for your hard work, is not only appreciated, but it encourages good future behaviour.
Actively encourage your employees to look out for good performance, and have them recognize it on the spot.
6. Be true to your company’s core values
Core values are central to business culture and practices, both internally among staff and externally among your customers, clients, and potential hires.
Externally, your company’s core values determine who applies for jobs that you post. Internally, core values are the foundation of your business.
They’re the touchstone that should shape the decisions that your employees make.
Take a moment to think about your company values: What does your business stand for? How do you measure success? What sets you apart from your competitors?
Also, be sure to live and breathe your values every day. They should be part of your vocabulary and daily actions. We do “core value awards” at our monthly all hands meetings. Employees nominate and vote on their peers for a particular value (e.g. #InItTogether) with supporting examples.
Finally, think about how your company values drive employee engagement.
7. Empower employees to explore potential
Evidence shows empowering employees increases their productivity. You will never know the capabilities of your employees unless you step back, let go, and stop micromanaging them. This will give employees the breathing room to explore their own potential.
Are your employees asking to work from home? If you are considering moving to a hybrid schedule (where employees work in the office half the time, and remote the other) or are transitioning to 100% remote, create a remote code of conduct to outline remote-specific policies. Keep in mind that clear, documented expectations make remote work satisfying and productive. Be explicit in what you expect from employees and outline how you’ll measure success in each role.
Be sure to:
- Define working hours: Do employees have to be online when your business is open? What are expectations around availability if regular business hours are not mandated? Are there mandatory daily or weekly meetings all employees must attend?
- Define communication and responsibility expectations: Are employees expected to reply to email within 24 hours? In what time frame are they expected to respond to customer inquiries?
- Using sick leave: Safety and well-being are top of mind right now for everyone during the pandemic. As a small business owner, let your employees know their health is your top priority with a written policy that shows sick workers are not expected to work. Create a shared calendar so employees can mark when they are out sick.
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