Do these 5 things to drive employee engagement
Make it meaningful. People need to feel that their work is meaningful and that it serves an important purpose—one that is beyond contributing to organizational outcomes and metrics. This is possible for everyone to achieve, and as leaders, it’s your job to help them discover it. Every job performed benefits others in some way. To get there, help employees think holistically (zoom out) and see the big picture of what they’re helping to create. For example, road construction workers help people get to where they’re going. This element of meaningfulness can be amplified by helping to make it personal (zoom in) on how the organization’s work (and their work) benefits them and people like them. For example, the new road allowed their family to arrive at their family camping trip 15 minutes faster.
Give them autonomy. People want to feel valued and that their ideas and strategies for approaching the work are appreciated. Giving employees the power to shape their work and environment in ways that allow them to perform at their best greatly impacts engagement. This often requires leaders to be humble and consider that the best/optimal way to achieve something may be discovered by the doer rather than the leader (which is often the case). Find ways to create opportunities for people to self-advocate for what they need.
Provide them opportunities for growth. To keep engagement strong, employees need to be learning and developing; otherwise, they can become bored and complacent. Growth isn’t only achieved through role advancement. The best teams encourage the exchange of ideas and support a learning culture. Discover ways to stretch and challenge your team that result in personal and professional progress.
Show them how their work makes an impact. Finishing a complex task, completing a project milestone, or mentoring a junior team member all impact your business. Help your employees see the positive, effective, and worthwhile outcomes and results from their work. Perhaps some data they sorted fed into an executive report that resulted in an increase in the operating budget next fiscal. Or the person they mentored is now being considered for a new role. Help people connect the dots and be sure to celebrate wins loudly and often.
Create a connected culture. The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime. That’s why we seek a sense of belonging, a community, with our colleagues. To achieve this, look deeper than team projects and team meetings. Get beyond “the work." It’s worth mentioning that I dislike the phrase “it’s not personal, it’s business." We are people, and it is personal. So, get real; let your teams truly connect. Be inclusive by design when organizing team activities. And create connection opportunities often and with the intention of strengthening cohesiveness.