I talk a lot about employee engagement, and I wanted to explain why I am so passionate about it and why it’s not just a buzz word to be flung around but really is the secret sauce to igniting your people and profit!
Employee engagement is not just about funky office furniture and a foosball table. Sure, they may make the work environment more fun for some employees, but they are not what truly engages and motivates your people to work hard and deliver strong performance in the longer term.
Engagement is the bond that is created between an employee and employer and essentially boils down to 4 key ingredients:
- Involvement – connecting with your people through sharing your vision/goals/strategy and creating a sense of belonging;
- Purpose – why am I here? Ensuring that your people have clear objectives, understand how they connect with the overall business goals and how they rewarded for high performance;
- Trust – building an open, honest environment where your people are empowered to perform to the best of their abilities is critical.
- Communication – underpinning all of the above, effective 2 way communication is key. What you say, how you say it and how you listen and react to your people plays a huge part in creating a culture of engagement.
Engagement is valuing people above product and processes. Good old Maslow and his hierarchy of needs may not sound like the most exciting basis for a chat around engagement, but it is a great way for identifying the steps to true engagement and provide a pathway to success.
Ensuring that you have the basic physiological and safety needs met is clearly important, but this is not what will ultimately drive your people to engage and perform. These need to be the platform you use to move to fostering a sense of belonging, esteem and ultimately self-actualization as this is where the magic happens! Focusing on ways to drive these areas to become an integral part of your culture will mean that your people will feel supported, empowered and motivated to be the best that they can be – which can only mean better business performance and increased bottom line results for you.
It is important to recognize however that engagement is not a one size fits all thing. Sure, whilst the funky furniture and foosball table may help to motivate and engage some people in some organisations to some extent, others really don’t care about those things, so it is crucial that the road to engagement is holistic and based on the specific needs of your people, your business and your culture.
Achieving true employee engagement takes time, it takes effort, but boy is it worth it!
If you are keen to explore more about the secret sauce to igniting people and profit in your business, click here to book a FREE Discovery Call with me!