How To Increase The Employee Engagement In Your Company

Engagement levels in the UK are reported at being around 30%.  Clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement.

The key to understanding this sorry statistic is people; (Does that sound like stating the blindingly obvious?)  People create the culture where engagement flourishes or dies; specifically, managers directly impact engagement across a business by the way they treat their people.

Why are some managers more likely to send employees to polish up their CVs while others have the stated intention of making their people’s working life a pleasure – and make their intention a reality?

Engaged employees are more productive. But some businesses are just too small to have the resources to be really effective in implementing their engagement strategies. They promise much and deliver little as the day-to-day business pressures always force engagement to the bottom of the priorities list.  On the other hand, other businesses are too large to create the sort of collaborative teamwork that is very often a key hallmark of an engaged workforce.

There’s no magic formula for engagement, but one thing is certain; without trust there will be little of it.  The Confederation Of British Industry actually called 2014 the year of trust.  The 2014 Great Place To Work Survey  showed that all top workplaces demonstrate high levels of both trust and engagement. Trust builds and sustains that positive relationship between manager and employee and between employees. This, in turn, drives engagement, which drives individual, team and business performance. If a manager had to choose one thing to focus on in order to reduce their churn, they should choose creating trust. They won’t be able to manage their people effectively without it.

Just how do managers create and maintain trust? The 2014 great place to work survey highlighted these top 10 manager behaviours.

  1. Keeping promises
  2. Actions matching words
  3. Assigning and coordinating people effectively
  4. Involving people in decisions that affect them
  5. Genuinely seeking out and responding to suggestions and ideas
  6. Showing sincere interest in employees as people
  7. Showing appreciation for good work and extra effort
  8. Hiring people who fit in well
  9. Being competent at running the business
  10. Having a clear view of where the business is going, and how to get there

The survey also showed that, in the top 10 best places to work, managers kept their promises (and made their actions match their words) a startling 61% more than the bottom 10 places to work.

Build up trust in your people; be authentic and respect and value them. They’ll trust you strongly and your engagement will rocket upwards.