One of the most prominent signs your company might not be the best place to work is a high turnover rate. High turnover means that your employees are leaving not long after being hired and you’re forced to replace them, which will certainly harm your productivity, growth and, ultimately, your revenue.
Don’t worry. There is a way to fix it. In most companies, this dreaded high turnover rate can be remedied with a simple increase in employee engagement. Here’s a short article detailing some of the best ways to keep your employees engaged and in line with your company goals and values.
Set Clear Company Goals
To be able to keep your employees in line with your business’ goals and values, they have to be clear on what those goals and values are. Oftentimes, businesses fail to instill their vision in their employees, which causes them to feel disconnected.
The key to setting clear and actionable goals and relaying them to your employees is to use the SMART module. This means that to define your goals, they need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant to your company and can be achieved in a timely fashion. If you are clear on these five points, then your employees will be too. It will be much easier for them to recognize what they’re working for and how their work benefits the overall success of your company.
Set Clear Career Paths
Another reason that employees have become disconnected and disengaged is the lack of a clear-cut career path. Just as the companies have to have a clear goal in mind, so do their employees. With the new generation coming onto the scene, the power of building a discernible career path for your employees is more important than ever. New employees are no longer content with remaining in their respective positions forever. They’re looking for a way to improve their skills and move up in the company.
To that end, it’s important to offer specialization and educational courses within the working environment. This new generation of employees value these courses because they give them the tools to grow both as people and professionals, which gives them a clear purpose. Employees with purpose are much more easily engaged and much easier to retain.
Hire the Right Management
If you’ve got a smaller company, you’ll likely be able to manage your employees yourself. However, if you’ve got 500 people working for you, you probably won’t have the time to sit all of them down, one-on-one, to talk about their goals and micromanage their work. That’s where the managers come in.
One of the leading causes for employees disengaging from their company is poor leadership and that leadership often falls on the managers. If you, as the owner, would be viewed as a general, your managers would be viewed as sergeants in direct command of your ground forces. It is their responsibility to enforce your company-wide vision and motivate your employees to work toward achieving that vision. Hiring effective managers is vital to having your employees engage in your company and become the workers you’ve been hoping for.
It is also a good idea to hold leadership courses for your managers, just as you’d hold self-improvement courses for your employees. Remember that true professionals need to continually hone their skills. By organizing these courses, you’ll help engage your managerial staff and your employees.
Pay Attention to Onboarding
The onboarding process in any company can make or break your employees’ engagement. Most new employees decide if the company is a good fit for them in the first few months on the job, so you need to strike the iron while it’s hot.
A good way of improving the onboarding process is assigning a mentor to your new employees. This mentor doesn’t have to be an immediate superior. They can be a senior employee with good communication skills and plenty of experience new workers can learn from.
There is another, slightly more unusual way of easing your employees into their work environment, and that’s hiring a corporate role play company. These companies offer proficient actors that will work with your team and provide real-life simulations of the work environment including possible situations that may arise. This allows you to get a good look at your new employees’ skills and decision-making abilities as well as acclimating them to their new position without having any negative effect on you day to day processes.
It’s All about Recognition
The final and the most important arbiter of employee engagement is recognition. Employers that fail to give proper recognition for employee contributions will see those employees quickly lose enthusiasm and leave the company.
When it comes to recognition, employees often don’t require grand gestures. A simple “thank you” is usually enough. Naturally, if you’ve got the means and the finances, rewarding your employees with perks for their hard work will definitely inspire them to work harder. That employee of the month picture hanging on the wall can do wonders for one’s sense of pride and accomplishment. Seeing a coworker being recognized can also motivate other employees to work harder to get recognized as well, which results in everyone being more engaged in their work.
Conclusion
These tips are the core values a company must have to make sure their employees are content and willing to actively contribute. By increasing employee engagement, you will reduce turnover and improve your company’s bottom line.
