It is possible for your company to have both an excellent product or service offering and a sizable client base. It is also possible to have an effective media strategy to support your sales and marketing efforts. Despite having a successful business and business strategy, if your employees aren’t invested in the work they do on a daily basis, they’re not likely to take ownership of their roles. Companies with vibrant cultures where employees are encouraged to dream big and try new things are more likely to benefit from employee engagement strategies.

What is employee engagement?

Human resource (HR) professionals use the term “employee engagement” to characterize an employee’s excitement and commitment to their job. Employees who are invested in their jobs and the success of their organization know that their efforts make a difference. To an engaged employee, their job is about more than just making a living; they may see their own happiness as intrinsically related to the success of your business.

Why is employee engagement important?

The importance of having an actively engaged workforce has never been higher. Looking ahead to 2023, your company and its HR personnel should consider what they’ve learned about employee engagement over the past two years during and post COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, plan preventative measures to solve problems and make working conditions more conducive to success for all employees.

It’s time to take action in the face of rapid change, resignation issues, increased costs, and, more lately, silent resignations. Increased stress, poor mental health, and significant disengagement among employees are being attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, employees are rethinking their ideal work-life balance and introducing changed expectations from businesses.

Over the past two years, business leaders have overseen unprecedented levels of transformation. Business models of most of the businesses shifted drastically overnight. Now more than ever, remote and hybrid work has become the norm. In addition, employees are making deliberate efforts to balance their personal and professional lives. The HR department, meantime, is dealing with a fire hose of resignations, employees with declining mental health, and a gradual decline in employee engagement. However, as 2022 comes to a close, it is time to refocus and for your business to collaborate with management to devise long-term strategies for your company’s growth. It’s best to begin thinking about 2023 by considering what you’ve learned in the past two years.

How can you adopt or enhance your company’s strategy for employee engagement in the year 2023?

Given below are the strategies that your company can adopt to improve or introduce employee engagement in your company:

• Recognize how actively are your employees engaging currently.

Having a clear picture of your current level of employee engagement and how it varies across teams is crucial. The prospect of designing and implementing your own employee engagement survey may seem insurmountable, but with the correct resources, you can do it with ease and gain valuable information. There may be underlying process difficulties or managers who need additional training if some teams continually have lower employee engagement than others.

• Create a smooth procedure for new hires to get acquainted with the company.

Starting a new job and being thrown into a sea of unorganized, poorly documented information can be terrifying for many employees. According to Qualtrics, retention rates for new hires are increased by 82% in companies with effective onboarding procedures. If you take the time to gather and arrange important information for your new hires in a way which is accessible to them, you can reduce the likelihood that they will be among the one-third of employees who resign within the first 90 days.

• Encourage mutual appreciation amongst colleagues.

Making time for colleagues and departments to acknowledge one other’s contributions, whether in a designated Slack channel or as a regular part of staff meetings, creates common ground and keeps employees engaged. According to Quantum Workplace, employees are almost thrice more likely to stay engaged if they feel their efforts will be acknowledged.

• Promote transparency to make the workplace feel like a trustworthy and positive space.

Managers and executives who view information as a shared resource, rather than a bargaining chip, foster an atmosphere of trust and increased productivity in the workplace. In fact, according to a study conducted in 2017, it was discovered that when employees are provided with an environment of openness and trust, they are more likely to take risks and generate innovative ideas.

• Turn feedback into a two-way conversation.

Far too frequently, those higher up in the organisation are the only ones who provide input to those working on the ground level of a project. Leaders can learn more from the individuals who are closest to the company’s goods and operations by encouraging participation in company-defining decisions through open-ended comments in meetings or surveys.

• Don’t forget the importance of manager training.

It’s a familiar story repeated by innumerable businesses: an employee excels at their job, earning a promotion to oversee others in the same department. However, because leading people requires a separate set of skills, even well-meaning managers might fall short without proper training. GoodHire, via its survey, found that an astounding 82% of workers were ready to leave their jobs in 2022 because of a poor management.

• Ensure that all meetings have a defined objective.

Most individuals understand what it’s like to be stuck in a meeting that serves no purpose other than to drain energy and focus. Meetings aren’t always productive, but they can be useful hubs for team communication if run properly. Participant preparation and presentation of refined ideas can be facilitated by interactive meeting tools.

• It is important to promote selfless leadership.

Your employees will feel more like they have a stake in the company’s success and less like they are just along for the ride if corporate leaders are prepared to show some human side by answering challenging questions or admitting they don’t know everything. Facilitating channels for employees to provide feedback anonymously to management in the course of pivotal meetings might yield valuable insights and address concerns.

The pandemic’s lessons on employee engagement are not completely new but rather it serves as a reminder for the companies to not only focus on profitability but on the company culture as well.  However, these solutions are not a quick fix. It’s time to connect with people, assess your needs realistically, and give credit where credit is due: to your employees. But that’s not a breeze, and it might be confusing to figure out where to begin. You can reach us here in case you need any information or help with improving your company’s employee engagement.