How to keep employee engagement at an all time high – even when working remotely
Imagine if you could have every employee showing up to work every day with the same enthusiasm and motivation as they did on their first day. Sadly, the reality is that many lose that drive. In a report from Gallup, only 33% of American show up to work feeling passionate and ready to take on the day, and it’s been reported that disengaged and demotivated employees are costing the US market between $450 and $550 billion in lost productivity.
Your job as a leader is to do everything in your power and harness all your leadership skills to ensure team engagement remains high.
Why? Dr. Susan David, Emotional Agility author and Harvard psychologist said it best in the The Leaders’ Essential Guide To Employee Engagement: “Everything that an organisation is trying to achieve, from growth to customer centricity – and especially cultural transformation, as a 2017 McKinsey report on the topic confirmed – is dependent on the engagement and buy–in of employees.”
To put it bluntly, the success of your team and its contribution to achieving overall business goals and objectives rests on how engaged and motivated your team is. And that rests on you as a leader to achieve it.
The reality is that there are no quick fix solutions in improving employee engagement. You can’t magically improve it through promotions, you certainly can’t demand it as a KPI. Engagement needs to be something that comes from within your employee – they need to feel dedication,passion and motivation to work their hardest for you. They do their best because they want to.
So how can you do that? How can you keep engagement high? And how can that be done when teams are working remotely and susceptible to losing steam?
1. Create an agile working environment
Now more than ever, it’s important to remain agile and adaptable to change. COVID-19 forced many businesses to rapidly rethink how they do things, and if this time has shown us anything it’s that we can’t just rely on old ways. If you can be a flexible leader who shows your team that you’re open to new ways of working (and ways that may better suit them during this time) and encourage agility, you’re likely to get a positive response. Empowering your team to decide when and how they work, encouraging collaboration where they may not have been before, and finding new ways to stay connected will show your team that you’re committed to fostering a work environment that works for them.
2. Empower your employees
In line with the above, empowering your team can go a long way in keeping engagement high. If they feel micromanaged or that they can’t be trusted to make a decision – especially in an environment when everyone is so physically disconnected and possibly frustrated – you can pretty much be guaranteed their engagement levels will fall through the floor. Give your team ownership of their tasks and show that you trust they’ll do the work, and do the work well. Invite discussion on decisions instead of dictating direction. Allow employees to set their own deadlines and tasks for achieving goals. It may feel like you’re taking a big risk taking so much out of your hands, but giving ownership and accountability will go a long way in showing them their contribution and knowledge matters, and that’s what will keep them engaged for longer and through things like remote working.
3. Stay connected
Maintaining conversation with your team is always important, but even more so right now. When you can’t engage in face-to-face interactions, it’s really important to make the effort to set aside time for digital communications – whether on-one-on or in groups. When you show your team you care about their wellbeing and progress, they’ll care to put in the effort to do their work. And the key word there is care. This isn’t simply about ticking a box and making a phone call. Your employees need to feel heard and valued.
4. Create a sense of belonging
One of the basic motivators is feeling like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself. That the jobs that you’re doing day-today are contributing to an important end-goal. Working remotely can encourage feelings of isolation and loneliness, so make sure you’re creating situations where your team can come together to collaborate and work together on projects, discussions and tasks. Let each person’s ideas feel seen and heard and that they’re actively contributing.
5. Don’t forget to have fun
Not every meeting – in-person or virtual – needs to be serious. In fact, if you’re all serious, all the time, that can be pretty demotivational. Adding elements of play, fun and games into your team environments can help lighten the mood and increase participation and engagement in problem-solving tasks and be a constructive tool in increasing productivity.
6. Encourage growth and development
For many workers, the opportunity for growth and development is an incredibly strong motivator. Not only because they want to progress in their career, but also because some are simply motivated by new tasks and challenges that push them beyond their comfort zone. If you can, give them new responsibilities and tasks (just make sure you don’t throw them in the deep end too quickly). Make sure to have regular conversations about performance and career goals, and help your team identify opportunities where their roles can expand or even change. Assist in training that can help them progress and learn to continue in their career journey. While this may seem a bit more difficult with remote working, commit to regular virtual catch-ups for performance reviews and mentoring.
Speak to us at Play4Business for more information and practical examples in action. Our training is in a blended format: we combine virtual classes and self paced learning for team leaders. And what’s more we provide you with a toolkit of easy to use activities including our famous ‘what the duck’ set of techniques. These are built for team leaders so that they maintain engagement in their teams – during every team meeting, stand-up session, morning ‘buzz’ session or any time your team gets together.
