At SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL, we believe your employees can be your greatest brand ambassadors. When everyone at your business is pointing in the same direction, sharing common values and habits, sustained performance is more comfortable to achieve. It includes directly employed people, contractors, and outsourced service partner employees.
Companies rely on the commitment their workforce can bring to the business. The more empowered your employees feel in their roles, the more they can contribute, innovate, engage, and bring forward.
However, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workforce report, only 15% of the global workforce is engaged. These people are emotionally invested, and willing to commit their time, talent, and energy to their role, but what about the other 85%?
What can you do to engage your employees at work? In this article, we discuss some of the strategies SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL uses.
The Effect of Employee Engagement in the Workplace
Of the 85% of the workforce who are not actively engaged, they are often happy enough in their role, but only invest the minimum amount of effort into their job. They’re less likely to push for great customer experience and don’t concern themselves with the brand’s productivity and success. 18% are actively disengaged. These employees can create a toxic work environment and make it harder for the remainder of the workforce to engage with their roles.
Employee engagement has an immediate impact on productivity, and therefore profitability.
Engaged employees that care about the quality of the work they produce will work more efficiently and at a higher quality. They will uplift the rest of the team and motivate others to do better. So how can leaders and managers improve the engagement of their team members?
The Leader’s role is to define and convey the vision and values of the brand. It means hiring and engaging managers that emotionally invested. They should provide insight and resources to great teams and place the right people in the right roles.
The Manager’s role is to acquire and foster great talent. Engagement is their priority. SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL equips managers with essential habits for improving employee engagement.
Steps to Improving Employee Engagement
For employees to be engaged in their role, they need to be confident about their responsibilities and the broader role they play within the company. They need to be aware of what’s expected of them and the resources and training available to them. It is the only way to ensure your employees do what they do best every day.
Employees should frequently gain recognition, praise, and constructive feedback. They need to trust that their Manager has their best interest in mind and that their voice heard and valued. Providing these basic requirements for each member of a team should be the Manager’s highest priority. In turn, everything will fall into place.
Put the Right People in the Right Roles
Hiring the right people for the right roles is paramount to good employee engagement. Managers should focus on talent acquisition and retention strategies and develop ways to find talent that aligns with the brand’s values.
Training and Development
Set the team up for success by providing training and development opportunities. The onboarding process is fundamental from the start. But proper training can continue to remove obstacles and enhance employee engagement. Research suggests that development is key to staff retention. Employees don’t only seek career advancement either – personal development opportunities significantly increase job satisfaction.
Define Meaning in Employees’ work
Engaged employees should do meaningful work and understand how their efforts contribute to the company’s purpose, values, and objectives. It should not only pertain to single tasks but their role as a whole. When you hire great talent, make sure you have a career path in mind and know how they fit into the company as a whole. Their work should have meaning on a grander scale, and their role in the company should be known to them.
Alignment
Employee engagement does not exist in a vacuum. The SERVICEBRAND approach helps make sure that all people’s processes aligned with the brand identity and support delivery of the customer experience. It is horizontal alignment.
It is also critical for there to be alignment vertically from the board room to the front line. It can be achieved by frequent two-way communication. Often, employees can give you feedback on how they could be better engaged and what they are missing to connect to their roles properly. This also helps them feel valued and heard. Make engagement an active, continuous dialogue and allow everyone to contribute to the company’s sense of value and identity.
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL Provides Employee Engagement Solutions
Our services focus on converting employees into loyal brand ambassadors. We do so by defining values in practice and designing recognition, development, and leadership programs to increase employee engagement. Get in touch for a consultation and hear how we can help you improve your team’s productivity using Employee Engagement Solutions.