- In our research, employees report that leaders are doing well on items such as accountability and fairness
- But leaders are falling short in providing what many employees want most—growth and development opportunities
- Making people feel valued and appreciated is critical for driving engagement during the pandemic
Why Are We Still Talking about Employee Engagement?
Because employee engagement can make or break a company, and it’s still a top issue for organizations in 2021. According to one study, 48% of HR leaders said employee engagement is the most important initiative they will work on in the next 12 months. Strategies for employee engagement, especially with virtual teams and in hybrid workspaces, requires attention and skills from managers.
Dale Carnegie research suggests that around 30% of employees are fully engaged, about half are partially engaged, and the rest are actively disengaged. Gallup, which has been tracking employee engagement since 2000, similarly found that employee engagement wavered between 38% and 31% in 2020. Such a fluctuation can mean big trouble for businesses since employee performance is so closely tied to the overall company success. And when top companies are achieving engagement rates more than double that, it means the rest have a lot of room for improvement.
A lack of engagement at work can lower employee productivity as well as affect general health and happiness. According to a study by The Engagement Institute, unengaged employees can cost companies $450 to $550 billion per year, a very measurable impact on the bottom line.
Three Skills for Managers to Master Employee Engagement
We’ve talked about this here before: managers are indispensable in boosting employee engagement levels. Why? Because managers can account for up to 70 percent of the variability in employee engagement rates.
Depending on where a manager is in the company hierarchy, they may not be able to control everything that impacts employees’ engagement. But managers, even informal ones, have more influence than we think on improving relationships between employees and the company.
Here are three skills to master that can make a big difference:
- Establish excellent interpersonal relationships
- Engage in authentic conversations
- Recognize people’s unique talents and reward accomplishments
Cultivating these skills is important and the payoffs—both to employees and the company’s bottom line—can be tremendous. In fact, companies with high levels of employee engagement are 21% more profitable than those with non-engaged teams.
These skills are particularly critical for interacting with virtual and hybrid teams where daily contact is more limited. For example, in one study, 52% of employees reported wanting more appreciation and recognition from direct managers. Yet, 22% of employees say they never receive that. Missing out on critical engagement opportunities such as this can greatly affect employee engagement.
Fostering Employee Growth
Dale Carnegie surveyed more than 700 U.S. employees to determine what factors influence their engagement levels. We tested 36 factors across three key drivers of engagement—pride in organization, trust in leadership, and connectedness with immediate managers. Almost half the variables tested pertained to immediate managers and included factors such as respect, caring, coaching, recognition, and growth and development.
Managers do get some things right. For example, high percentages of fully engaged employees strongly agree their managers:
- Hold them accountable (78%),
- Treat them with respect (76%), and
- Treat them fairly (69%).
However, they don’t do quite so well in other aspects such as coaching and mentoring employees. Far fewer highly engaged employees strongly agree that their managers:
- Promote their growth and development (59%),
- Regularly recognize their work achievements (58%), or
- Serve as their personal mentor and coach (49%).
As for partially engaged and actively disengaged employees, the ratings come in even lower. Only 29% of partially engaged employees and 13% of actively disengaged employees, for example, say their managers promote their growth and development.
This can be damaging because more and more employees—especially Millennials and now Generation Z—believe work should involve growth and development. If managers won’t make that happen, employees will find an organization that will.
Start Engaging Employees Now
Managers on the journey to employee engagement need to recommit to doing more. Take an honest assessment. How long has it been since we discussed growth and development opportunities with our employees? How often are we checking in with them and digging deeper than the surface answer of “I’m fine” to gauge their engagement?
There are plenty of employee engagement strategies we can implement immediately. Here are a few:
- Make sure teams are aware of development opportunities already available to them. Managers can learn more from their company’s HR professionals and then discuss with individual employees which growth opportunities are right for them.
- If growth and development programs are lacking, we should still find out from employees what they feel they need to increase their performance. Then we can find innovative ways of meeting those needs. This might include giving time off so employees can attend a class, helping teams put together lunch-n-learns or a business book club, or engaging in peer-to-peer training.
- Develop a plan to recognize individual employees’ efforts and successes. Managers must serve as mentors by finding out what motivates employees and working with them to create a career development path, which may or may not include moving to another team or company one day.
Pick something that matters and work on it. Holding teams accountable and showing respect and fair treatment is critical to engaging employees. But addressing employee engagement as a whole can improve business outcomes and increase employee retention.
Check out our training programs or white papers for more techniques and strategies on how to reward, recognize, and develop your teams.