Under ordinary circumstances, staff engagement is important. During today’s extraordinary times, engagement has become mission-critical.
Team members who feel engaged and connected with the fabric of their organizations tend to act as proxy corporate owners. They make decisions based on what’s right for all stakeholders — not just themselves or their departments. Plus, they go the extra mile and give that little bit more that could mean the difference between a business hitting or missing its revenue goals.
However, staff engagement remains difficult to achieve. As Gallup notes, only 15% of workers from around the globe report feeling engaged in their careers; that percentage is notably higher among United States employees, clocking in at 35%. That’s still a low percentage — particularly during a time of economic instability that could drive the world into a significant period of recession.
How to Keep Staffers Motivated and Engaged Throughout Uncertainty
As a CEO, I feel a responsibility to boost my team’s engagement — especially now that it’s so essential to engage both remote employees and in-house staffers. I want team members to feel that what they do, who they are, and what they care about matters.
To that end, I’ve become increasingly involved in day-to-day operations, encouraging communication among all workers while playing the role of coach (rather than the boss). A significant achievement would be for my employees to look back on the COVID-19 period and know that they were treated fairly and empathetically by their employer and supervisors.
To be sure, the road to higher employee engagement isn’t simple, obvious, or even uncomplicated. However, taking a few strategic approaches to ensure team members know they’re trusted and buoyed by their organization’s superiors will pay off. Additional data from Gallup indicates that the way managers act and react to the people they serve can significantly affect engagement. In other words, what you say and do as a leader right now could have an immediate and statistically significant effect on your employees throughout the recovery phase ahead.
Ideas for Engaging Remote and In-House Employees
When I hire someone, I make an unspoken promise: I’ll provide compensation and meaningful employment, and they’ll commit to bettering our company via their talents. But COVID-19 showed me that I need to take that promise a step further. Essentially, I need to do everything in my power to help my workers navigate the choppiest waters we’ve seen in a long time (and maybe ever, in the case of Generation Z and Millennial leaders).
Below are a few essential techniques for keeping remote and in-house employees engaged. I encourage you to consider each tip if you’re interested in building a stronger base of staffers that can work at highly productive and innovative levels:
- Treat telecommuting seriously. When workers were first quarantined, they made do and cobbled together workspaces in their dining areas or dens. Like Wild West pioneers, they used the available resources to make it work.
However, we’re past those early days. Employees who are still remote deserve to have the same amenities and equipment they have in the office to the fullest extent possible. This means being open to purchasing headsets, desks, chairs, and technical devices for them.
Alternately, you might also be able to allow personnel to pick up some of those items at the main office and then move them into their houses for as long as they telecommute. Regardless of how you provide your people with improved working conditions, you’ll eliminate barriers to productivity and comfort. - Retain a sense of availability, transparency, and camaraderie. Before COVID-19, you likely didn’t speak with most of your employees on a daily or regular basis. Hopefully, you’ve made changes and are touching base routinely. To get more staff engagement from your ramped-up communications, include people on decisions that you might have made solo in the past. This might sound inefficient, but it will help everyone feel like they have a say in the process.
Along these lines, don’t resist tough conversations — particularly ones pertaining to mental health. Harvard Business Review research shows more than 4 in 10 workers want to talk candidly with you or their direct reports about their psychological well-being. Even if it makes you feel awkward, listen without judgment. And if you’re not versed in your company’s mental health benefits, find out the perks your organization offers so you can make the necessary suggestions. - Empower employees to work based on their intrinsic needs. Your corporate culture and its normal rhythms have been interrupted, which means it’s time to figure out how to revamp core processes that bring your team members together. No one way of working is suitable for all employees. Some like to be alone for long stretches, and others get energized from being around their peers and having impromptu brainstorming sessions. Your job is to figure out how to at least partially satisfy your staff’s preferences without losing momentum.
The answers could come from your workers themselves. For instance, you might want to direct teams to come up with plans to stay connected and effective. They can then run their adaptations by you for final authorization. If you don’t like that approach, you could also send out surveys and then use the results to create protocols and implement strategies aimed at bringing everyone together.
Learning how to keep employees engaged isn’t a “set it and forget it” checklist item. It’s an evolving process. Keep tweaking your customs to generate deeper bonds between and with your company’s personnel. It’s worth the effort — and it’s the right thing to do.
Commentary by Greg DeLine. Here’s what you’ve missed?
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