Nearly everyone agrees that keeping good employees is far easier than finding and attracting new talent. But beyond that, the value of engaged employees connects directly to your company’s bottom line.
Engaged employees:
- Increase profitability. Invested employees work harder, and deliver better customer service.
- Higher productivity. Employees work fast, strong, and hard when they enjoy what they are doing and where they work.
- Reduced absenteeism. An unhappy, disengaged employee is more likely to call off work.
Back To The Secret of Success
The first three elements of IT By Design’s equation for effective employee engagement were covered in last week’s blog—performance management, collaboration, and understanding what employees are thinking. Now on to the next three. Remember, each element is equally weighed in the success of your efforts—it takes all six.
Communication
In nearly any relationship, communication is key. Companies often focus solely on informing their customers about their business but forget to keep their own employees in the loop. A couple of suggestions:
- Do a weekly Employee Headlines Email, sharing kudos, wins, and updates in a quick-read format.
- Remember to keep your corporate message on focus, with your CEO setting the tone and sticking to those value points day in, day out.
- Create an employee newsletter full of celebrations, updates, big successes, and announcements about everything from changes in the office to new partnerships.
Engagement Activities
This may be the easiest step for your organization to take, and it’s a great starting point. Involve your entire team to brainstorm how you want to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. Create a “Wall of WOW” highlighting team members’ success. Plan a Go-Givers activity in your community, providing the opportunity for your team to engage with each other and enjoy contributing to the places you work and live. Create fun videos that stand alone, or highlight any of the above. Not only are videos entertaining to create, but they are also wonderful tools for recruiting.
The Revered RACI Chart
If you’ve never built a RACI chart, don’t be intimidated. It’s a simple spreadsheet that captures everyday job tasks in big buckets. For example, a marketing team might have lead gen, public relations, events, digital content, etc. Once that step is complete, list out which team members are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each task. Armed with this document, every single team member can see at a glance what they are held accountable for, who they should work with to execute each task, and clearly understand what other team members need to be in the know. It also directs the bigger team if they need help with a particular activity.
While these elements of effective employee engagement may seem overwhelming, our advice is to start with five simple steps: build your RACI chart, do your career development plans, create a Wall of WOW, and work with each team member on their individual scorecard and start holding daily morning huddles.
You will be well on your way to success.
