Behind every successful company is a strong team of talented employees. Anyone holding a managerial position knows that building a team that’s highly skilled, motivated, and reliable is no easy task. However, you can achieve that by implementing a few solid, tried-and-tested workforce engagement strategies. Exploring different employee engagement strategy options can get you excellent results, such as better profitability and productivity for your business, higher sales, and greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

9 workforce engagement strategies

Start with an employee engagement survey
How engaged are your employees currently? If you don’t know the answer to that question, it might be hard to form a talent engagement strategy that works. Consider conducting a survey to know what your employees want and what matters to them. An effective survey must include rating statements on a scale, open-ended questions, and multiple-choice questions, among other things. The survey questions must address employees’ everyday experiences, their interaction with the management, and other things you deem necessary. Once the data comes in, you’re all set to start working on engagement strategies.

Establish a culture of two-way communication
This is one of the most fruitful staff engagement strategies companies can, and must implement. Having a culture of open communication between the managers and the employees helps the employees open up, discuss new ideas or issues they face on a daily basis, and build trust in an employee-manager relationship. It’s advisable to go a step further than this and bring more transparency into your organization. Let your employees know what’s happening behind the scenes and include them in the decision-making process whenever possible. This will encourage employees to fully invest in your company’s mission.

Acknowledge good work
People love to receive recognition for their contributions, and your employees are no exception. They will be highly engaged and inspired when they feel that the work they do every day is significant and helps the organization achieve its short- and long-term goals. Directly communicating praise to your employees is great, but not enough. Good talent engagement strategies stress on the importance of recognizing them publicly, such as by highlighting their contributions in your company’s newsletter or team email. You can even reward them with a cash prize, a free day off, or a gift card to their favorite restaurant in accordance with company policies.

Provide opportunities to learn and grow
Employees prefer to work at a place where they are given opportunities to learn new things and hone their already-existing skill sets. One great way to motivate and engage them is to offer them education reimbursement for training and courses that are relevant to their work. This will not only help employees grow professionally but also reassure them that the company believes in investing in its employees rather than hiring new people with the desired skills. It’s also vital that your employees see a clear path of career growth with your company, as that will inspire them to work harder to move up the corporate ladder.

Make regular work days more enjoyable
Most employees want to do more than just office work. They want to break the monotonous routine once in a while and have a friendly conversation with their co-workers. One of the top options is to organize fun employee engagement activities to achieve the same. You can play office games, such as trivia games or scavenger hunts, once every month and celebrate birthdays or any other significant events in the employees’ life. You can also scour the internet for great ideas on employment engagement options. However, ensure these activities happen during office hours rather than after work.

Improve work-life balance
Even a well-paid employee with a promising career may leave their employer if there’s no work-life balance. Maintaining a work-life balance is crucial to reducing stress and preventing burnout. To do this, you might need to become flexible regarding office space, timings, or both. That means allowing employees to work from home on certain days or having flexible office hours instead of the traditional 9-5 culture. As part of the staff engagement strategies, you might also want to have a generous paid time off (PTO) policy and provide paid parental and caregiver leave to your employees. While all this flexibility may come at a cost to employers, it may significantly help retain top talents in organizations.

Don’t forget your remote employees and distributed teams
Today, many companies have a segment of employees or teams working from home or satellite offices. If that’s the case with your organization too, keep in mind that you’ll have to work a bit harder to drive virtual and remote workforce engagement strategies. One simple thing you can do is always utilize video conferencing instead of phone conferencing to help them feel like part of the team. Also, ensure the virtual teams have the same amenities and perks as other employees no matter where they’re working from, so they don’t feel a lack of engagement or importance.

Reconsider your office layout
You probably haven’t thought about this before, but do you suspect that your current workplace design is the reason behind less employee engagement? Well, human beings are greatly influenced by their surroundings, so it’s vital to have an office space that’s more inclusive and boosts communication and collaboration among team members and leaders. If you have cubicles in your office, get rid of them and embrace an open office layout. Create a modern, bright office setting with ample space for various activities, including a dedicated area for having meals or relaxing when on a break.

Set up an effective onboarding process
Don’t underestimate the importance of a good onboarding process. About half of the new employees decide, within the first two weeks of joining a company, whether they want to stay with the organization for the short- or long-term. It’s crucial to have leaders and owners interact with fresh talents on the first day itself if you want to create a sense of emotional investment in the role and company. During the onboarding process, introduce new employees to their team members so they know what each member does and how they can support them.