7 Tips for Employee Engagement in 2018

Having a few fresh ideas to help build employee engagement can make all the difference. Here’s 7 to get you started:

1. Open up communication

Reassuring employees that there’s an open communication culture can be great for engagement. When employees know that they will be listened to, they will be motivated to bring helpful ideas and solutions to the business.

Employees are often wary of voicing opinions or ideas as they feel they may be speaking out of place. It’s important to break down these barriers and develop a culture where ideas can be put forward without criticism or judgement.

2. Nurture teams

A team that knows each other and gets along will be much more productive than a disconnected team of strangers. This can be particularly difficult for large businesses, where employees might never be properly introduced to each other. Holding events and fun activities can be a great way for everyone to get to know each other and build the strength of the team.

This could be office competitions or an office party at the end of the week, for example. Think about the type of people in your office and plan accordingly. Similarly, office chatter isn’t necessarily something that needs to be shut down. While work and business related conversations are important, a break with a chat about the weekend or a TV show can be great for employee engagement.

3. Provide professional development opportunities

Employees appreciate when their bosses show interest in furthering their careers. Employees with opportunities to learn more will be more engaged and interested in applying the new things they learn.

Consider taking the team to an industry event or supplying relevant online courses. Education providers like Upskilled make it easy for workplaces to offer courses as they can be completed online, at their own pace.

4. Encourage positive health & wellness

Healthy workers are more likely to be engaged at work. Stress, lack of exercise and poor mental health is a product of the busy lifestyle of modern professional life. The key to engagement in the office is to combat these things by encouraging a healthy lifestyle.

Providing healthy office snacks can encourage healthy eating habits. Many companies offer gym memberships or have weekly massage therapists come into the office to combat stress and fatigue

5. Improve the office environment

One of the biggest challenges to employee engagement is the repetitiveness of office life. It’s no secret that at times sitting in the same place for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week can get dull and tedious.

Some companies struggle with building an engaging office culture, because culture seems like such an abstract thing. Introduce things like music, artwork or even an office pet or fish tank and encourage employees to add a bit of their own style to the office. Of course, there will need to be some boundaries but if the office is a place employees enjoy coming to, they will be significantly more engaged.

6. Engage with fun

This tip is pretty self-explanatory. If staff are enjoying themselves at work, it’s obvious they’re going to be more inclined to come in, will be happier and ready to produce great work.

Remember that fun doesn’t have to disrupt the office. As we have mentioned, end of week events, music and lunch time activities are great for increasing workplace engagement.

7. Let employees focus on what they do best

Everyone wants to work on things they enjoy and things that they’re good at. When they’re able to do this, and know that their work is having a meaningful impact, you will have a very engaged worker. Find out your worker’s strengths, ask them what they are comfortable and enjoy doing and assign them related projects. This shows you are paying attention to your staff and value their interests.

Be smart with what teams you form. Employees who can collaborate with similar workers on projects they enjoy will not only be engaged, but it can help improve their skills in areas they’re interested in. Over time you will build up teams of experts in different areas and this is what building employee engagement is all about!

There are many ways to build employee engagement. The main thing is to focus on building relationships and ensuring your team are comfortable at work. Teams who are happy to come to the office will ultimately be more engaged.