Inspiration drives employees to work. Motivation is important. But many workers today feel uninspired by what they do at the workplace, get fed up and start hunting for new jobs. If this exit of employees happens regularly, and retention is near impossible, the company loses steam and benefits from talent, skills. For any company, an existing workforce with institutional knowledge is important. It helps the organization to grow.
Employee engagement is important to job satisfaction. Employees of today need more than a routine job. They want to be recognized, rewarded and motivated. They care about the company brand.
Employee engagement is all about the worker's involvement in their work at your organization. It is a human resource idea to denote the dedication an employee feels at the workplace.
Engaged employees feel that their dedication benefits the company in its growth. They care for the work culture you can offer, more than their salary. Their well-being is directly proportional to their performance. It is thus an inevitable part of the company's growth.
The Employee Engagement Blueprint
An employee engagement blueprint is a must to know what makes people happy and productive. There are three top engagement models. Each model is based on organizational psychology. They help companies to have their system for employee engagement.
1. The Zinger pyramid
The model invented by David Zinger depicts a pyramid structure. It focuses on 10 top actions that business leaders must take to employee engagement. In it, you have to start with employee needs, like their wellness and passionate work. From there, work upwards for the next levels of results.
The ingredients of the Zinger model:
In the Zinger pyramid, the bottom is the basic things that every employee needs to do excellent work. At this stage, you have to improve, energize, and strengthen them, contributing to their wellness.
The second row is connecting employees with the organization. You have to recognize and build relationships with rewards and celebrations of personal moments.
Track progress and maximize performance.
The third pyramid focuses on personal and social engagement translating them into practical strategies to achieve results.
The goal is to profit and improve productivity through employee engagement. Define clearly define your objectives. Tools like eNPS, team KPI enhancement and retention could be used to track your goal to achieve a definite outcome.
2. The Deloitte Model
It engages employees by a work culture with respect, involvement and challenges. The Deloitte company was successful in creating an irresistible workplace. The employees are in love with the workplace. There are five core elements to this cultural model:
1. Four key elements are essential: Hiring culture, Autonomy, Empowered small teams and Slacking time
2. Aligned management
Managers create or destroy an employee's morale. Align and empower managers to engage your employees with setting clear targets, training, using resources in management development and performance.
3. Positive ecosystem
Create an ecosystem where employees feel comfortable, respected, and rewarded.
4. Future Prospects
You have to solve employee passivity and stagnation. Provide promotional opportunities in your company, such as training and facilities for career development.
4. Mission and trust
You have to show commitment to your workforce and win their trust. It depends on the purpose, investment in employees, and transparent communication.
3. The AON Hewitt Model
This model affirms that employee engagement affects the company from customer relations to turnover. This model helps leaders managers to gauge the engagement level.
Factors on Employee Engagement
There are three key factors of employee engagement.
Leadership
Inefficient managers make big holes in your revenue. You fail to select the right one. If you have a mediocre manager, your employees will never feel motivated and engaged. A professional leader will have a robust relationship with the employees with better communication.
Rewarding excellence
Recognition and rewards make employees get engaged and perform immensely. It boosts the team. Begin a recognition program reflecting your culture and values. It can be monthly awards, a thank you note or a gift card or a party.
Professional growth
A survey indicates that a company can retain 94% if they are supported in their profession. Modern employees are accustomed to learning and believe it is a factor to feel happy. These professional growth prospects is an integral factor of employee engagement.
Strategies to improve employee engagement
Engaged employees are committed to work and their company. Employee engagement is not only the annual meetings, responding to emails, or periodical reviews. It's a meaningful dialogue between the employee and the company. It, in turn, results in high levels of efficiency, morale, and productivity. Organizations have to improve employee engagement by efficient remote team-building tactics and internal communication.
A detailed list of employee engagement events:
1. Parties for employees
Companies have seasonal parties to celebrate business growth. You need to add new celebratory festivities like Thanksgiving parties, Halloween dinners and parties. They make employees feel that they're an integral part of the company family. Invite families, spouses, mentors and significant relatives to these events. Throwing a party during the day will save expense. You can even barter with other companies.
2. Learning Lunches
Learning lunches can bring your team and help them understand. Different departments can share their current work, and tackle new subjects as a group and celebrate birthdays.
3. Employee Competitions
Employees can engage in games and competitions. You can host a pool tournament, where you can set up an internal cuisine.
4. Special Days
Special days such as No Uniform day, Pajama day, Bring your child to work day can be exciting to employees.
5. Training sessions
Boring training sessions have to be replaced by special speakers, like spiritual gurus or experts in personality and skill development; always try to give your employees something fresh.
6. Sports activities
You can organize sports events such as baseball, basketball or soccer teams, invite local teams, and invite employees' family members.
7. Working as a team
Employees look forward to activities on team-building. They love especially activities outside the office. There are options like Go-cart racing, Laser tag and bowlingThese kind of activities will strengthen bonding outside the office and give the workers a common platform.
8. Charity Days
Charity and fund-raising days bring together employees to contribute to a humanitarian cause. Often unexpected natural calamities like floods and earthquakes affect your employees. They want to be with the victims. You can chalk out a series of events as causes; employees strongly attach themselves.
New ideas for employee engagement
Technology has brought in new ideas for employee engagement. If an employee is engaged in tech devices and can work simultaneously, it is better to encourage them.
Surveys reveal that engaged employees are happy, productive, and likely to continue in an organization that allows personal freedom. A company can achieve a better retention rate by facilitating employee engagement. While they remain with the organization, engaged employees perform better, helping companies achieve goals, greater growth. They have positive interactions with customers. There is any number of technological tools and ideas available for you to keep the employees engaged.
Feedback with a chatbot
Chatbots are there to ask questions suited to your organization. They follow up automatically with employees on concerns you have raised. Employees may be willing to vent their pent-up emotions and frustrations to a chatbot than to a manager or colleague. It becomes a customized feedback channel, with responsiveness and follows up. It happens even if the employees are not in the office.
Action on feedback
Knowing the real feelings of your employees is important, But it doesn't stop there. You can't sit idle after getting the feedback. What are you going to do with that information is significant. Most employees say they are eager to stay at a company that takes feedback seriously and acts on it. You have to analyze survey data and your channels. By this, you can establish benchmarks, track significant metrics, and visualize trends that guide your intuition and response.
Recognition is a must
Lack of recognition in a company drives employees out. Extending social recognition tremendously workers as monetary rewards. It leads to all-around benefits-improved personal performances, better NPS, higher esteem in the stock market. It results in employee retention.
Virtual office hours
It's a virtual world. You can encourage employees to make the best of it. Allow employees at all levels to drop in and engage them in informal chats in a virtual meeting. Your Slack channel is a valuable tool for true feedback.
Keep employees happy
Employees should be free to do things they love during part of their work time. It is an incentive to keep them happy. It also benefits the business: happy employees tend to be creative and bring new product ideas.
Establish wellness program
Regular wellness programs give priority to employee health. It helps to minimize job stress and keeps them happy. They feel that their organization cares for them and their family.
You have the ideas with you now. Think out of the box, find your ideas and prioritize the needs. Find out what keeps your employees truly engaged. Then you can chalk out an action plan.
How to Keep Employees Satisfied
There is no organization without a workforce. Automation will never replace the employees. Each employee is important in your company's scheme, vision, and goals. He is part of the work culture.
An HBR study found that disengagement lands companies in a loss of around $550 billion per year. The productivity of a company gets increased by almost 12% by the employee satisfaction.
Happy employees will be more productive. It will tremendously impact the bottom line of your organization. A single point program can't improve employee performance. Inspiration, motivation training etc., are essential to keep them engaged. A strategy to enhance employee engagement should be in place.
There are ways to enhance employee satisfaction. Some factors hinder their performance.
Why does employee satisfaction matters
Employee satisfaction is a term used to denote how satisfied employees are with their jobs, experience, and the company. It is one key measure that can determine the overall wellness of a company. Hence many companies do surveys to gauge employee satisfaction. They follow satisfaction trends regularly. A high satisfaction rate is an indicator of employee happiness. It is an indicator of the employer's treatment too.
Key factors of dissatisfaction
=The prominence of job satisfaction:
Employee satisfaction is critical for employees to show excellence. There is no pressure or compulsion on them to work in your company. They pursue a dream of taking their company to new heights. Employee satisfaction creates a positive environment at the workplace.
Happy employees will be regular at work. Resulting in saving of time and money.
Chances of retention become less.
Satisfied employees perform better. Overall performance of companies grows with a large chunk of high performing employees.
If employees feel that you support their interests, they will work harder. The concept of citizenship behavior holds good here.
Unhappy employees would create issues everywhere. They become rigid. Happy employees participate in training programs; They are eager to pursue emerging technologies that help them in their careers.
Job satisfaction reduces psychological stress and social risks.
Factors of Employee Satisfaction
The intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect job satisfaction have to be considered here. The intrinsic factors have a personal dimension. The extrinsic factors are about the job and the company.
Individual factors. These are ingrained in the employee's personality: self-confidence, conscientiousness, and ability to control emotions.
Job-related.These are traits of the job itself: skills, tasks, feedback and autonomy.
Organizational.The working ecosystem, leadership, technical and emotional support, supervision, internal relationships, job prospects, salary, developmental issues,
Employee satisfaction determines the discretionary effort a team puts in. Each employee will have different work goals. But there will be certain psychological common factors related to job satisfaction. You have to understand the psychological factors about job satisfaction.
Employees will have a feeling of fulfillment when they have achieved something. The whole team should feel they are an integral part of a bigger entity, the company. Even smaller wins are cause for celebration.
Positive feedback energizes a person. If they don't get it, many fall into distress and frustration. If you give them creative feedback, it will be a learning process for them. If you give them feedback, it will be a pointer to their potential growth. Negative feedback is just a statement of faults and inefficiency. it could be positive if you explain things and share ways to improve. It can be done to improve it.
You need not harbor excessive job expectations. It can lead to emotional stress, psychosomatic upheavals and lesser output. Keep working and non-working hours separate. It will help reduce the job stress in your life.
The physical environment of the workplace can have a major impact on the team's job satisfaction. A decent desk, some solitude and separation between the quiet and social sections are all necessary. Your office space will be more attractive if you add plants and excellent lighting. These amazing office layouts are worth looking at.
Employees are satisfied when there is abundant support from the company. It is a happy feeling to know that the company cares for them. You can encourage them through better communication. The morale of employees is important. The superiors have to treat them in a civilized manner. Encouraging emails will be a morale booster.
Gauging employee satisfaction
There are three methods of gauging employee satisfaction: single global rating, global measurement or summation score and facet measurement. In some cases, a fourth method, the personal interview, is applied.
Single Global Rating is an answer to a single question.
The single question can be, "how satisfied are you with your job?". The number of answers can be around five-satisfied, not satisfied, highly satisfied etc.
This method is simple. Employees are well aware of their satisfaction level. The supporters of this method guarantee that it is an effective tool similar to larger surveys.
The other two are sophisticated. These are accurate methods. Both include several questions related to work: conditions, salary and perks, relationships with colleagues and managers etc. Each point has a standardized scale, and researchers generate scores, combining them.
The global measurement obtains an overall score. The facet method evaluates each facet and imparts a different score for each.
Employee satisfaction is an important criterion to ensure higher profit for the company. Employees have to have a feeling of belonging and attachment towards the company. If it is not there, training or motivational pontifications would never help,
Strategies to improve satisfaction
We have seen factors that decide job satisfaction, like flexibility, autonomy, and recognition. Let us take a journey through the relevant essentials to understand better how job satisfaction impacts your company. A survey showed organizations with employee engagement outperforms those with low engagement by 202%.
Half of the millennials mentioned learning and development as the important factors in deciding the organization to work in.
Half the workforce identified corporate culture as the main factor in looking for a new job.
If employees feel their strengths and abilities are used properly at work, they are 15% less likely to exit their job.
Most employees will stay in a company if their bosses show more empathy and humaneness.
Strategies to improve Morale
1. Recognition
A study revealed that 63% of employees feel they are devoid of recognition. Managers should recognize the positive contribution that a leader has on the brand voice to be more effective.
A Deloitte research identified engagement, performance and productivity are 14 per cent higher in companies that reward their employees. A 15 per cent hike in engagement could win a two per cent rise in profits.
2. Career prospects
Companies are investing in employee development with a definite goal. Both companies and leaders have a chance to grow if they make investments for the company's growth. Online classes, master classes webinars, seminars, and certifications are all methods to achieve the goal.
3. Flexibility
Employees are increasingly looking for a work-life balance. Companies need to create hybrid work environments to stay competitive. Encourage openness and cooperation among members of your team. You must stop micromanagement.
4. Improve communication
Adopt transparent internal tools to communicate all the changes that occur at the workplace. Unhappy employees feel they have been kept in the dark, if there is no communication and if they come to know the changes from outside the company, reading dailies.
5. Hold surveys
Surveys are useful in understanding the views of workers about organizational developments. They can provide valuable inputs about specific measures that leaders have to address.
6. Address wellness
Holding seminars on health can help employees. Make sure that they get regular breaks, annual leave. Make sure they have robust food options. Offer discounted gym memberships. Create company communities for fitness goals.
7. Foster good relationships
Collaboration and cooperation are important in the workplace. It is the key to today's workplace success. Participation in team-building activities fosters collaboration among employees. To encourage employees to build meaningful relationships, you may organize regular gatherings. Friday happy hour or weekly learning lunches are examples.
8. Attention to housekeeping
Small things make a big difference. Avoid mediocre facilities like slow servers, shoddy software, or malfunctioning instruments. All employee concerns have to be taken care of with speed.
Conclusion
According to surveys, happy employees are 31% more productive. They show three times more creativity than unhappy workers. You have to build a close, humane company culture. The effervescent, rich company culture begins to bubble when your workplace is abuzz with humor, joy, humility, and connecting activities that foster camaraderie. Employees are happy, engaged, confident and feel motivated. Happy employees create a creative, productive, and innovative workplace. By integrating even small changes to keep employees satisfied, organizations can scale heights. Start with the easiest thing on the available list. When you reward the employee, you get rewarded.
Strategies for Employee Retention
Hiring the right talent is tough. But retention is a challenge.
Every company invests a lot to groom talent. When the talents says goodbye, the company is at a loss. The employee leaves fully trained in skills. It is to make him equal to the existing workforce. Employee retention strategies are in place to ensure that the talent stays for the optimum period.
When an employee decides to exit, the first sign is disengagement. According to estimates, 35% of employees exit jobs each year. The pandemic has made the new remote work normal. Employees have a wider range of employers to scout from. It is high time you created an engaging workplace with proper strategies for retention.
Need of Employee Retention
Retention refers to the strategies employed to help the employees stay with the organization for a longer period. Employee retention strategies motivate the employees so that they say in the organization and contribute immensely.
What do you gain out of retention? Some benefits:
The existing employees are familiar with the policies and guidelines better.
Employees in an organization staying for a longer period have loyalty
Retention reduces training costs.
It creates a friendly ecosystem and bonding
Increases profits for the company.
Employee retention strategies
Some of the techniques to keep employees:
Excellent Ecosystem
Recognition and rewards
Flexibility
Scope for career growth
Healthy internal relationships
Competitive salary
Companies hired during the pandemic. They will hire more. You have to scale up your retention strategies if you don't want to lose talent. Here are some ways to push employees' satisfaction.
1.Remunerative package. Perks can attract talent. It also can re-engage existing staff. It will boost employee morale. Build a culture of recognition. It is enough to reward people once in a blue moon. Even if the employees are working at home, you can send mails of appreciation.
2 Rich onboarding experience. Everything starts with onboarding. It continues for a year. It takes a new hire up to two years to reach the same level of productivity as an existing employee. Make them feel at home at the outset.
3. Continuous feedback. Frequent meetings have become the rule of the day. The annual reviews process has been abandoned. Begin one-on-one meetings. Brief them about their professional goals. Make them visualize their future with you. Never make hollow promises. Talk to them about career growth potential. Draw a realistic plan to achieve those goals.
☆ Stock option. ESOP is an excellent option to compensate. It is an incentive. The employees become stakeholders. They own the company too. Thus they stay invested. It maintains liquidity.
☆ Alter Responsibilities. Involve them in vivid tasks and rescue them from the monotony of doing the same boring tasks. Let them work with other departments. It will create better ideas, improve relationships. It will teach them extra skills for professional growth. Encourage creativity. Give them space for personal growth.
☆ Work-life equilibrium. A robust work-life equilibrium is needed for job satisfaction. Managers should know that employees have lives outside. Maintaining the balance is more challenging than working from home. Encourage employees to take their vacation. Give them extra time off to compensate, working extra late at night.
Employee retention factors
It's important to have programs and incentives in place. Several factors decide whether an employee is happy and engaged. Let us look at some essential employee retention factors.
1. Flexible ecosystem
Remote working has become the rule. But employees are looking for more flexibility. They won't simply conform to the conventional restrictions of the 9-5. If there is rigidity at the workplace, they will look elsewhere. If someone doesn't need collaborators for a big project, let them work from home. Einstein had discovered the theory of relativity while working at home. Taking a holiday is not a sin.
2. Wellness benefits
Give a health spending allowance or a gym membership. Psychological stress can negatively impact business. Offer a reasonable health benefits package, which includes health and life insurance. Offering a retirement plan is a nice retention strategy.
3. Personal development
An employee learns and grows with the company. Hence you need to have a personal development policy. New learning and development avenues encourage an environment of growth for everyone.
4. Address financial stress
Considering a pay hike is not easy. Financial insecurity is behind the exit of several talents. An employee worried about money will not be productive or happy at work. If another organization offers a better package, he will quit even if the existing ecosystem is good. But if you want retention, you have to pay a competitive salary. You can ward off the uncertainty if you pay your employees a little more than the market rate.
5. Use Technology Wisely
Human dependence on digital tools and technology has become greater. Over-dependence can lead to burnout. It is a contributing factor to attrition. There is no point in sending messages every half an hour. Video conferences and phone calls can guarantee messages are conveyed in the right tone. Technology is an asset, not a liability.
6. Encourage generosity
Encourage societal behavior in employees. You are allowing them to connect. By encouraging them to be good human beings, you give them a sense of trust in society and the company.
7. Formulate friendly policies
The employees must be given one or two wellness leaves in a month. They can rejuvenate. Avoid calling them on weekends. Let them be with their family. Celebrate major festivals together at the organization.
Conclusion
Hiring should be seen as an opportunity rather than a risk. Smart hiring techniques are there. But you cannot ensure that your new hire will fit in. Fresh hires revitalize a company. Don't hire just to fill a gap. Retention is critical. Your employees feel secure; The company becomes their second home-the first for workaholics!
© Ramachandran
