While so many employees have shifted to working from home during the pandemic, research shows often the perk of working from home comes with its share of drawbacks. For some employees it’s the lack of human interaction. From others it’s managing children that are also at home. Some employees report a lack of technology or access to key components to do their jobs.
Keeping your employees engaged and satisfied with their working conditions is beneficial to organizations. Here’s how.
Retaining employees will save you money and time on searching for and hiring new staff members. Retaining team members over long periods of time also helps create in-house experts. These employees can help train others and troubleshoot problems that are bound to arise. With long-term employment, morale also improves as comradery grows. And finally, employees who know their jobs well and are jiving with coworkers produce better outcomes and customer experiences.
But how do you define employee engagement and keep employees satisfied?
Simply put, employee engagement means how passionate employees are about their jobs and how committed they are to your organization. If you want the proof of how engaged your staff is to the work you do, watch productivity outcomes and retention rates. Those metrics will reflect engaged employees.
How can I better understand employee engagement and satisfaction?
There are many ways to measure employee engagement. And they don’t necessarily include attendance to events and games.
Barometers we recommend:
- Surveys – Surveys can be done through online tools like SurveyMonkey. Setting a schedule to send out surveys will ensure timely, regular feedback is collected. You can send surveys to your employees monthly, quarterly, or annually. Whatever you decide on the schedule, we recommend the surveys be quick and easy to answer.
- Focus Groups – Focus groups can come in a variety of forms and with a third-party administrator, you may find employees will speak freely on complex issues. Focus groups can be carried out in simple listening sessions or through formal groups where participants are being asked specific questions. One-on-one interviews are also helpful.
- Leadership accessibility – Making sure your top leaders are available to your staff will provide a huge boost to employee morale. You can start a truly, anytime open-door policy or set weekly hours in which the CEO, managers, or owners are available to the employees.
- Stay interviews – Instead of waiting to conduct exit interviews with departing staff, we recommend stay interviews. Use this time to ask questions about what the employee needs and how you can support the team. Other key questions should focus on why the employee has continued in their positions and what they are learning or hope to learn.
Listening and reacting is key to employee engagement
Once you’ve gathered information from your employees, be ready to act on what you learn. Gathering the feedback and failing to implement changes is a huge mistake. Often employees will feel unimportant, unheard, or disrespected if they don’t see any changes made from the feedback.
When to ask for help
Many local businesses are simply too small to support a full-time Human Resource employee. At Benefit Concepts, we have an employee who is SHRM certified. On a regular basis, we assist in general human resources questions for our clients. Many of our clients staff fewer than 20 employees, so we are able to leverage our access to SHRM.org and ThinkHR to help. Contact Benefit Concepts for your insurance needs, and we can and will assist in HR needs.
