Implementing an Effective Employee Engagement Strategy

Employee engagement has become a focal point in today's workforce because companies largely know that to keep customers happy, you need to have happy, engaged employees. The recent focus on "quiet quitting" has renewed companies' attention to employee engagement. According to the Paychex 2023 Pulse of HR report, 75% of HR leaders surveyed listed employee engagement as an area of focus in the coming year.

As the workplace continues to evolve in the post-pandemic world, businesses are increasingly placing value on their employee engagement efforts. Companies with engaged employees may reap the benefits of increased productivity, improved employee retention, and growth. An effective employee engagement strategy lays out the actions needed to encourage employees to take pride and ownership in their work. These strategies should also be linked to the company's mission and core values.

What Is Employee Engagement and Why Is It Important?

Paychex HR consultant Rob Sanders describes employee engagement as "the behavior and attitude characterized by a deep and broad connection to one's organization and role." This connection is driven by an employee's commitment to the success of the company and their own individual performance. In short, engaged employees want to do well, and they want the business to succeed.

The process of engaging employees starts with job interviews and new-hire training, where they first learn about company culture and career development opportunities. On an ongoing basis, companies recognize the many benefits of employee engagement in areas such as increased productivity and retention. In short, employee engagement is important because it creates a positive work environment that enables everyone to thrive and succeed.

What an Engaged Employee Looks Like

Engaged employees may look very different when comparing one organization to another. Factors like company culture, management expectations, and accepted behaviors all affect engagement at work. Top-level management should model desired attitudes to demonstrate how employees can express engagement levels. Although this expression may vary between companies, some similar behaviors have been noted across industries, such as:

• Providing feedback and suggestions for how to improve the business
• Seeking new opportunities instead of complaining about lack of work
• Inspiring clients, partners, and coworkers to feel passionate about the company's mission
• Referring others to the organization

Importance of Employee Engagement

Engaged employees can help businesses succeed because they are more likely to contribute to the organization at a higher level on a longer-term basis. If employees are engaged in their work, they're more likely to stay with the company longer, which can reduce the costs of employee turnover in the long run. These employees may also establish valuable work relationships and embody the company's culture and core values.

Alternatively, when employees become disengaged, dissatisfaction can ensue. They may start to find excuses to be absent from work and refuse to take advantage of opportunities for career progression or situations that could benefit from their expertise. In these instances, both the employee and the company are missing out on opportunities for success.

How To Improve Employee Engagement

If you need to improve engagement, efforts should be reviewed and analyzed to determine what's working and what is not particularly effective. While new employees should be welcomed and feel engaged from their first day on the job, engagement is a continuous initiative that shouldn't fall by the wayside. On an ongoing basis, engagement can be reinforced in a variety of ways, including:

Hiring the Right People

Hire employees with the strongest job-related skills who can contribute meaningfully to your company and will take advantage of the opportunities available within your organization. During the recruiting and hiring process, you should also have your hiring team share information about your company culture to help qualified job candidates determine if they would fit in well.

Setting Up an Onboarding Program

A strong onboarding program for your employees can help lay a strong foundation. Employees who go through a structured onboarding may be more likely to stay with the organization.

Communicating the Company's Mission

Be clear about what your company does as well as your core values. Managers should understand the company's vision and be able to communicate to their teams, customers, job candidates, and others why you do what you do. Employees should also understand how their particular role within the company relates to the overall mission.

Being Transparent

Transparency can be directly proportional to the motivation of employees to work harder toward a company's goals. In these uncertain economic times, if employees aren't sure of their future, they may feel the need to seek a position with more financial security. To help improve retention and engagement in the face of inflation and uncertainty, management should strive to keep employees updated and present an honest, clear picture of where the company is headed.

Offering Opportunities for Training

Offering employees training opportunities can help them to develop their skills while also serving as one of the top ways to encourage employee engagement. Businesses looking to introduce this benefit to their workers can leverage learning tools and technologies, suggest relevant industry conferences, or recommend other training resources to help employees hone their skills and industry knowledge.

Offering Technology and Tools

Providing access to technology and tools can help keep employees motivated. Employers should be open to suggestions from the workforce regarding process improvements, as one example. Involving your staff in these types of decisions is one tool for improving employee engagement. Relying on the expertise of your workforce to determine the need for an investment in infrastructure could also help you gain efficiencies above and beyond increased engagement.

Encouraging Initiative

Empowering workers and encouraging them to suggest new methods or products was another top tactic cited by HR leaders in the Paychex Pulse of HR Survey to help improve engagement with employees. If employees feel they are making a difference and contributing to the company's success, they may feel more confident in their work and find ways to become productive on their own.

Providing Benefits

Competitive pay is often no longer enough to attract and retain top workers. A solid benefits program can contribute toward improving employee engagement by alleviating some of the stress employees may feel outside of work when securing quality health care, saving for retirement, or handling their finances, for example.

Promoting Healthy Work Habits

Caring about your employees and encouraging healthy work habits can also help keep them engaged while on the job. Managers can use employee engagement measures to ensure that employees are working smart and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. For example, a review of a PTO report may reveal that one of your employees hasn't had a chance to take time off recently. In this case, managers can approach the employee about their current workload and ask if this is impacting their vacation plans.

Monitoring Engagement Throughout the Year

Employee engagement can shift based on what's going on at work. Monitoring engagement through employee surveys or other types of feedback can signal when you need to step up your efforts. Ask respondents about job satisfaction and specifically include questions about current strategies associated with engagement to identify areas for concern and improvement. You might also find that you're doing well in certain areas and can further develop your base strategies.

Practicing Corporate Social Responsibility

Employees may want to feel like they're working for a company with strong values and a sense of corporate responsibility. Committing to a corporate social responsibility plan and communicating this to employees can translate into a higher level of engagement and increased collaboration efforts throughout the company.

Volunteering is one of the best socially responsible activities to engage employees. Not only can you promote team-building in a less formal environment, but you can also allow employees to choose an activity that means something to them while forwarding company values.

Employee Engagement Strategies

Once areas of potential improvement are identified within a company, the next step is to craft specific strategies for employee engagement. Recognizing that even small changes can make a difference, companies should prioritize what they believe would work best and monitor the resulting outcomes. Some examples of employee engagement ideas to consider implementing at your company can include the following:

Professional Development and/or Career Paths

Professional development opportunities are an important part of employee engagement. Employees need to be challenged, interested, and connected with the work they're doing. This engagement can look different depending on the individual employees and positions involved. While certain staff may crave the challenge of solving complex problems, others may focus on using their skills and abilities to contribute to the team's goals.

Tom Holmes, Vice President of Strategy and Operations at HelloTeam, underscores the emerging role of AI in succession planning, sharing, “Organizations need to show employees their career path from day one. With AI tools, even small businesses can identify talent gaps and plan for the future.” This proactive approach empowers employees with a clear sense of purpose and development opportunities, improving retention and growth.

Help your employees see how they can grow professionally over time to help keep them focused and committed. You can accomplish this by defining career tracks within the company and allowing employees to express an interest in following a certain path. For example, establish a management training program for those interested in preparing to take on a more senior role within the company.

Engaged Management Teams

Encouraging managers and supervisors to model engaged behaviors can set a positive tone for other workers. Upper-level employees should be communicating with employees on a formal and informal basis. They should take part in employee recognition programs and corporate social events. They should also solicit employee feedback and demonstrate their commitment to make improvements in the company when needed.

Employee Recognition

Employees often feel engaged when their contributions, ideas, and efforts are recognized and respected. With this in mind, consider finding ways to solicit and incorporate ideas from staff throughout the company, from the C-suite to the front desk. Any employee recognition program should fit in with corporate culture. For example, some companies may want to implement a formal process with annual recognition gatherings. Alternatively, informal recognition can also work well in more flexible, fast-paced environments. Taking an employee aside to thank them for going the extra mile or to tell them they're doing a good job can have a positive, lasting impact as well. Managers should also be tasked with creating an effective feedback loop through employee performance reviews and ongoing feedback throughout the year. When your team feels appreciated, they are more likely to contribute at a higher level while wanting to remain with the company.

Improve the Quality of the Work Environment

Changing the office aesthetics or adding more comfortable office furniture is another consideration for creating a more positive work environment. You may want to use employee surveys to gauge interest in things like a coffee service or new office furniture, for example.

Interpersonal relationships are another important component of the work environment that play a role in how engaged employees are. How does your corporate culture stack up? Evaluate what steps you could take to improve the day-to-day work environment. Are relations between employees and management cordial? Do teams collaborate well and get along? Is there a positive energy that permeates the general work environment? Each of these elements can play a part in establishing overall work culture.

Open Communication With Employees

Town hall meetings and other employee Q&A sessions can help open communication lines and help employers regarding how to engage with employees. Train your managers on how to establish and maintain a positive relationship with their direct reports. Invest time in team building and helping the workforce forge connections. Stronger teams and positive employer/employee relations may help staff feel connected and engaged with their work. Teach business acumen and suggest listening to your company's earnings calls as a team, which can help drive a culture of transparency and openness.

Holmes also outlines the importance of transparency in leadership and organizational goals. “Employees don’t just want to see A, B, and C tasks—they want to know what D, E, and F mean for the company vision,” he says. By tying individual roles to larger company objectives—and showing the impact of each person’s work—businesses can inspire deeper motivation and loyalty among their teams.

Make Work Meaningful

Perhaps more important than any other strategy, employees want to feel as though what they're doing is creating an impact and carries meaning. Showing employees how they fit into an organization and how what they do contributes to company success can give them a greater sense of purpose and achievement throughout their career.

Managing and Measuring Employee Engagement

If you're putting effort into a specific employee engagement strategy, you should expect to see clear, measurable results. Increased productivity and improved performance metrics are two of many standards companies can track over time. Whether you're looking for overall trends on engagement or identifying individuals and departments in need of support, workforce analytics can provide insight into what's happening in your business.

Current and former employees are another valuable source of data when analyzing engagement levels. Spend time talking to employees before they leave by conducting an exit interview, preferably in a place where they will feel comfortable speaking honestly about the company. You may want to discuss their experience working at the company, especially interactions with management. Knowing if there is anything that could have made them stay may help your company in the future keep other employees engaged and retain them within your organization.

Just as every company is unique, so are its engagement practices. That's why it may take a period of trial and error to find the methods that work best. Still, a well-rounded view can help businesses as they look to retain productive, engaged employees.

Employee Engagement Solutions

Paychex has solutions, including Paychex Flex® Engage, an employee engagement solution with tools and resources specifically designed to create and maintain a motivated and engaged workplace.

Just as every company is unique, so are its engagement practices. That's why it may take a period of trial and error to find the methods that work best. Still, a well-rounded view can help businesses as they look to retain productive, engaged employees.