How to improve employee engagement

It is one of the great responsibilities of managers at all levels to let employees devote themselves to the process of realizing organizational goals. Research shows that the more dedicated employees are, the stronger the innovation ability of the company, the higher the production efficiency and the better the profitability. However, many enterprises do not perform well in strengthening employee engagement. Accenture's survey shows us ten ways to improve employee engagement, and provides solutions for enterprises in this respect.

How committed are your employees to helping the company achieve its organizational goals? How enthusiastic are they in pursuing these goals? If your company is like most companies now, you will face certain challenges in employee engagement.

To evaluate the professionalism of employees, we need to measure the following five important characteristics:

Satisfaction-employees who expect to be realized are most satisfied. These expectations are related to their jobs, their organizations and their direct supervisors. Satisfied employees will not feel depressed in the process of pursuing personal goals.

Understanding-Dedicated employees not only care about their own happiness and satisfaction. Employees with high professionalism have a clear understanding of the company's strategic direction and objectives.

Contribution-This feature goes further than "understanding". Dedicated employees not only have a deep understanding of the company's strategic direction, but also know how their work is directly related to the implementation and success of the company's strategy.

Consistency-A dedicated employee will feel that his personal value is consistent with the company's value and mission. If venn diagram with two circles is used as a symbol, if one circle represents personal goals and the other represents company goals, then the two circles will have a moderate overlap.

Employee retention rate-unlike other characteristics, this is an external indicator. However, employee retention rate is also an important measure to evaluate employee engagement. Of course, there will be such a situation: the most dedicated employees resign, and the employees who muddle along will not leave (this is often the company's sorrow). Nevertheless, the retention rate is also an important standard to measure the degree of employee engagement.

These five characteristics are a comprehensive description of employees' professionalism. What enterprises need to know most is that when evaluating employees' professionalism, they should consider these five points in a balanced way, and they should not lose sight of one thing and lose sight of another. It is impossible to have a comprehensive understanding of employees only by referring to any of these indicators. Taking "satisfaction" as an example, a large number of examples show that satisfaction may not be a powerful indicator to measure higher performance if it is not considered comprehensively with the expected results.

In large manufacturing enterprises, employees' satisfaction is too strong, but their engagement is very low. There is an atmosphere of complacency in the company. The strong growth of the company is good news, but it also produces a by-product of complacency. The company's top managers, including the CEO, are worried about the problems caused by overly complacent employees. The president of the company said, "If we want to succeed, we must constantly remind employees not to be complacent. This is one of the most important things we must do. We have been a little too complacent. Employees must accept the fact that even if we succeed, we will continue to change and improve to maintain our advantages. " After having a preliminary understanding of employees' professionalism, we should also consider how to help the company strengthen employees' professionalism. The following are ten main ways to improve employees' professional quality.

Performance-related reward system

The primary motivation of high professionalism is related to salary. However, the research shows that what matters is not the salary of employees, but how the enterprise uses salary and other forms of reward and recognition to make employees feel that they are an important part of the enterprise. Sense of belonging has a key impact on employees' professionalism, among which psychological rewards are very important, such as sense of belonging, integration and firm belief that their work is very important to help the company achieve its goals.

One way to create a sense of belonging is to link rewards to business results. Research shows that if rewards are related to employees' personal performance and business achievements, the degree to which these rewards motivate them is closely related to the degree to which they maintain and improve their performance. American Standard Company linked the reward to financial performance and six fitness goals. In many high-performance companies, the management has also formulated individual performance reward plans, and the assessment indicators include not only traditional sales or revenue targets.

Such as Raymond James Financial Services and Raymond James &; Employees set up the Best Achiever Program to reward individuals for their contributions beyond financial achievements. For example, managers will reward employees who provide excellent service to customers or put forward creative ideas. Briggs &; Stratton Corporation also encourages managers to reward employees for relatively small performance-based achievements.

Similarly, the US branch of SAP has developed a "toolbox" for managers, which includes various ways to recognize employees' achievements based on value, from simple mutual thanks among colleagues to more formal plans to publicly reward outstanding employees. This information can be obtained online and disseminated instantly.

Excellent human capital infrastructure

The company will provide various resources for dedicated employees to carry out their work effectively. For managers today, accurate information and data about employees is an important resource. Companies that make reasonable investments in human capital infrastructure will be rewarded in many ways.

A financial services company with highly dedicated employees has spent several years improving its human capital infrastructure in order to provide managers with more comprehensive and accurate human resources information. The company has adopted outsourcing and service enjoyment measures to be efficient in matters such as salary payment, welfare management and attendance. Its leadership now believes that the human resources department has excellent infrastructure to eliminate employee redundancy. Attaching great importance to the simplification of information system and human resources transactional workflow means that the company can better provide managers with the information they need to carry out their work.

Future-oriented learning management

The learning management process includes having employees meet with consultants regularly to discuss their learning needs and make career development plans. Companies that do well in this area have higher employee participation than companies that do poorly in this area.

Compared with their peers in the same company, the employees of ESKOM Power Distribution Department of South Africa Power Company are more likely to realize that the training they have received will not only help them complete their current work better, but also lay a foundation for the future. Compared with ordinary companies, ESKOM employees will also discuss training issues with their managers or career development consultants more often. The company attaches great importance to the training of employees, and the annual training cost for each employee is as high as $65,438+$0,65,438+065.

ESKOM leaders admit that the current training does not fully meet the company's goals, but they are convinced that the importance of employee training is beyond doubt. Training can enable employees to master the skills needed to help the company succeed, and ensure their enthusiasm and professionalism. In fact, two of the four goals set by cabassi, the president of the company, are related to the skill development of employees.

Cabassi explained: "In order to change the company's business model and gain a foothold in the highly competitive market, we must improve our skills in information technology, engineering technology, teamwork, leadership and project management. Only in this way can we manage our big projects more effectively. Besides, it is also important for us to be good corporate citizens. In order to do this well, we have formulated many plans to help disadvantaged employees acquire literacy and computing skills and improve their professionalism. "

Knowledge management interacting with employees

In order for employees to make effective contributions to the company's mission, it is necessary to ensure that they can get the latest and best information. They must be able to quickly find the best partner to meet customers' needs, manage projects or find better and more creative ways to finish their work.

Professional service consulting companies provide employees with web-based tools so that they can better acquire and share knowledge capital. The company also trains employees how to use these tools, records the number of times they contribute new information to the knowledge base, and determines different knowledge requirements for different employee roles.

The establishment of practice community is conducive to sharing knowledge and solving problems with like-minded employees, and informal cooperation across departments. The company has established a reward mechanism to encourage employees to actively participate.

Continuous performance evaluation

Some opinions against employee performance appraisal are mainly to be kind to others, and people are even willing to take unfair and dishonest risks. It is really difficult to tell employees that they are not doing well.

However, most employees are pursuing success, and helping employees improve their own shortcomings can also show goodwill. Constructively providing negative feedback also shows that managers care about the progress of employees. Of course, the positive evaluation conclusion is a kind of reinforcement and commendation for employees' good behavior and an important incentive measure. Companies that do well in this field have 52% higher employee engagement than companies that do poorly.

Some companies are exploring best practices in this field. Balitong tries to link performance evaluation with company strategy more directly. More frequent employee performance evaluation enables companies to strengthen positive behavior patterns more effectively and reduce behaviors that are not conducive to the development of employees and the company. Before meeting with the boss for performance evaluation, employees need to fill out a discussion guide, which requires employees to think about what they can contribute to helping the company achieve its strategy.

It is human nature to avoid evaluation, so the performance evaluation policy must be implemented. Belitong requires the company director to complete the evaluation at least once a year. Todd Teske, president of its power products group, said: "We need to identify key result areas in the company's strategy, which can be measured when evaluating employees' performance. I think this may be the most important way to make employees dedicated and improve the company's performance. "

Appropriate workplace design

Usually, managers don't think that the design of the workplace has any important influence on the professionalism and morale of employees. However, research shows that in companies that create suitable workplaces, employees' engagement is much higher than that of ordinary companies.

Nowadays, many companies are trying to use workplace design to increase employee participation and improve the performance of the entire workforce. Take the advertising company Wieden+Kennedy (famous for Nike's "JUST DO IT" advertisement) as an example, it provides a working environment for the creative team, the company's most important employee, to stimulate creative sparks.

At its headquarters in Portland, Oregon, the company may invite professional designers, writers, dancers and action artists to share the workspace with employees to enhance the creative atmosphere of the company. The company is headquartered in a community where there are many galleries, theaters and design-oriented retail stores (such as furniture stores). More importantly, it plans to use a favorable environment to encourage creative interaction. The company divides employees into four groups, with 30 employees as neighbors, and encourages them to participate in creative competitions. In order to promote social interaction that can stimulate new ideas, the company provides employees with facilities such as coffee bars, basketball courts and various leisure areas.

Attach great importance to employee relationship management

Compared with other companies, companies that handle employee relations well have more dedicated teams. Research shows that an important part of employee relationship management process is communication and change management.

"We encourage managers to fully communicate with employees," said mcdermott, chairman of SAP USA. We broadcast TV every quarter, and every time the company's top management goes to a remote branch, we will hold a staff meeting to communicate with the staff on the company's primary tasks and challenges and listen to their ideas. "

Career development planning that keeps pace with the times

According to the analysis of Accenture's human capital development framework, companies with good performance in employee career development are 52% more engaged than those with poor performance. In companies with high employee engagement, employees meet with their supervisors or career development consultants about twice a year to discuss their career development. In companies with low employee participation, it is less than once a year.

A division of Raymond James Financial Services is also one of the departments with the highest employee engagement scores in the survey. Its employees interview their supervisors twice a year on average, but the average number of surveys is less than once a year. Moreover, employees in this department are more likely to realize that their superiors have the skills needed to help them plan and develop their careers and have a career development plan that can provide clear guidance for them to achieve their personal goals.

Fair and consistent human capital strategy

Dedicated employees can agree with the company's elite management system, that is, employees with good performance should be better paid. However, employees all expect and deserve a development platform with equal opportunities and treatment. If the salary and career development opportunities are inconsistent, it will inevitably lead to employee dissatisfaction.

Many large companies do not have consistent human resources policies and processes, and many other companies do not have existing policies. This situation will lead employees to gradually lose their trust in the basic fairness of the company.

For example, the leader of a company with a low employee engagement score explained: "Similar positions in different business departments have different career development opportunities and treatments. Employees move freely between different departments of the company in order to seek better remuneration in the same positions in other departments. "

In other companies, because the number of annual leave days for employees is not clearly stipulated, some people strive for as long as possible. The result is often unfair, which in turn leads to employee dissatisfaction.

Pay attention to the recruitment process of "raw materials"

Quality always comes from the best materials. When recruiting employees, we should not only consider the skills needed for the job, but also consider whether the applicant is suitable for the company culture. The recruitment process plays an important role in selecting employees who are most likely to be competent and willing to contribute to the company. An important part of this process is to ensure that the hiring manager has the ability and skills to find the most suitable candidate for a position.

At Spirit Recruitment Company, human resources department leaders spend a lot of time to ensure that they find the right person for the right position. Jill Goldstein, the company's vice president and head of human resources, said: "The important point of successful recruitment is to clearly know the abilities, skills and behaviors required for each position. We recently adopted the behavior scale interview method to recruit the most suitable person. "

Managers at all levels of enterprises can refer to the ten points listed above and apply them to practical work to improve the professional quality of employees. For example, they can actively communicate with employees about the changes in the company and ensure that employees get the training they need to access the information base and knowledge base; They can discuss human resources plans and policies with employees, and let employees know that these policies are not only consistent, fair and just, but also supported by the company's top management; They can affirm and reward employees' performance in simple ways, such as praising someone at a team meeting; They can help companies recruit employees who may be more dedicated, guide employees and encourage them to participate in training; They can help companies ensure that their work environment meets the specific needs of employees with different types of jobs.

These are all part of the overall strategy, which can help the company build a more dedicated workforce. Such a team is more likely to invest creativity and passion in the process of pursuing high performance.