Tips for Enhancing Employee Engagement & Motivation 

by Corporate Education

Are You Experiencing High Turnover, Resignations or Difficulty in Finding Skilled Employees?

Employee engagement is so important to all organizations as it has a profound impact on creating a better workplace culture, reducing staff anxiety, increasing productivity, building a better work and customer relations, all which impact the organization’s bottom line.  

The first thing you’re going to say is you don’t have time to do this.  Well, if you don’t, there is a good chance you are experiencing a higher-than-normal amount of turnover, resignations, and difficulty in finding skilled employees. Trust in the leadership to support their employees is critical. 

As a leader, it is important that we help our employees through difficult times of growth and change.  It requires increased levels of leadership, planning, and high levels of communication. It is vital that you keep your employees engaged, connected, and productive.  To do so requires leaders to shift their strategies just a bit to rally their workforce to adjust to the many changes and disruptions they are facing both at work and personally.  

Here are some key techniques you can use in adjusting your leadership strategies that will help your employees sense and feel your desire to help them and thus keep them focused and productive.  

Face-to-face time

Meeting face-to-face physically or virtually, is the best method to bridge the engagement gap. Put time on your calendar to do this each week. If it is a virtual meeting, tell employees not to worry about your attire, hair, or messy desk as no one is always at their finest.  The fact that you are connecting with them shows your support for what they are doing and provides an opportunity to make yourself visible to them and they to you. 

So how often should I do this? It really depends on the department and individual role of the employee. If you are currently doing this once per month, increase the frequency to two times per month for a while and build that connection and trust 

As the pandemic’s “new normal” has become the “normal,” it may seem OK to reduce the communication frequency.  Be careful here.  Employees just came out of the pandemic. Because of the lack of socialization during the pandemic, they still need opportunities for social interaction, direct support from managers and other leaders, and continued structure and support toward what they are doing.  Uncertainty, social isolation, the lack of that ‘community’ feeling, and associated anxieties may emerge if they are still struggling with socialization. 

Utilize surveys or quick polls at meetings.  This technique brings the employees to providing meaningful input, continues the connection to the organization they need and shows you are interested in possibly doing what is best for them. 

Acknowledge the disruption created by the pandemic, but don’t let it be the lead topic

The pandemic impacted everyone in many ways and there is no point in pretending it wasn’t anything but disrupting. Try using the first couple of minutes as a “check-in’ on how everyone is doing.   

Consider varying your leadership style

If you don’t normally have an empathic leadership style, empathy may feel unauthentic to you. Consider sharing an amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person, picture of your home life or things that will help you find the right channel to connect with individuals. During this opening conversation, you need to prioritize the needs of your employees over your own leadership style.  

Leadership requires a lot of you.  You need to show compassion, empathy, and a commitment to personal interactions. Take a hard look at what your employees might need to do their best work.  Do they need more flexible hours to accommodate the realities of family life? More frequent check-ins? Increased or decreased independence on their tasks or projects. What is it that will help them in their efforts to be good employees?                                                 

Train and Upskill Employees

There are many articles addressing the retention of employees. Training and providing your employees with new skills that they can apply in expanding roles is a great way of improving your workforce and showing the employees that you value their skills and contribution.  This doesn’t need to be a major change; it can be accomplished in small incremental steps over time. Another great approach is cross training an employee to do other jobs. This gives them a break from their job and adds new skills for them.  It also helps create a more agile workforce. 

Maintain the key goals and vision

Engage your employees in discussing how best to accomplish the goals and vision. Now that the pandemic is over, frequent discussions can help maintain alignment with those key goals and vision. The vision provides much-needed structure by enabling employees to feel a part of the greater organization and can be a motivator during these crazy and disruptive times. 

Maintain those projects

When we entered the heart of the pandemic many projects were either put on hold or permanently cancelled. Take that list of projects and engage your employees in categorizing and prioritizing these projects; take one of two items from the list and put them into motion. OK – you have less staff and the same amount of work to do – right!  But something new and different can have a great impact on engaging employees in something different – especially if it is something that can make their job easier, more efficient, or more effective. 

If you are concerned about employee engagement, corporate or workplace culture, recruitment, or other business operation impacts, let Clover Park Technical College Corporate Education be your partner in helping you build solutions that will transform your people and organization through those operational or behavioral issues. 

Contact us

253-583-8865 | corporate.education@cptc.edu | www.cptc.edu/corporate-education 

References 

Deloitte. (2021) What has COVID-19 taught us about employee engagement. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from https://www2.deloitte.com/mt/en/pages/human-capital/articles/mt-employee-engagement-and-covid-19.html 

Forbes. (2021, May 20) 15 Innovative Ways to Boost Employee Engagement. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2021/05/20/15-innovative-ways-to-boost-employee-engagement/?sh=7ecd5b1f374b 

Gallup (2021) Create a Proven Employee Engagement Strategy. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from https://bit.ly/3SSvZT4 

Harvard Business Review. (2021, October 13) How Companies Can Improve Engagement Right Now. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from https://hbr.org/2021/10/how-companies-can-improve-employee-engagement-right-now