Knowing how to improve employee engagement will boost your team’s morale, performance, and productivity.

It may sound simple, but only 41% of employees feel engaged in the workplace, meaning that most workers don’t feel any attachment to their work. And it’s time to change that.

It’s up to employers to consider the drivers of employee engagement to create a working environment where everyone can deliver their best work — and that’s where this article will help.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is a way of measuring the commitment, motivation, and enthusiasm of your team.

Your most engaged employees are ‘brand advocates’ who intend to continue working at the company for a long time. As you might expect, employees are most active during their first few months at a company. After only two years, their engagement levels begin to drop.

From two years onwards, employee engagement and disengagement levels are similar — that’s a lot of working time where employee morale suffers.

Motivating employees to keep them engaged with their work is in your best interests. Knowing how to keep employees engaged and motivated will help to improve team morale and productivity, as a happy workforce is 20% more productive.

5 reasons why employee engagement is important

Stronger work relationships

Building strong working relationships with colleagues and management makes coming to the office much more enjoyable for your team. Employee satisfaction climbs by almost 50% when they have a good rapport with colleagues.

Fewer days off

Sickness and staff engagement go hand-in-hand. You should do everything you can to keep your employees healthy, and taking action to keep them engaged is a great tactic.

Doing your bit to engage your team leads to 41% fewer sick days — more time spent working is excellent news for your company!

Increased employee retention rates

When an employee hands in their notice, you’ll need to dedicate resources to replace them — which means investing time and money.

The hiring process is between 20 and 30 days on average. And once you’ve found a suitable candidate, you potentially need to wait out a lengthy notice period before they can start. During this time, your team will have a higher workload.

By keeping your team engaged, they’re more committed to your company, which means higher retention rates.

Higher productivity levels

Creating an environment where employees enjoy their work, have strong relationships with colleagues, and know they’re working towards a greater good is hugely motivating. And a motivated team is up to 17% more productive.

Raise your bottom line

Disengaged employees are costing your company around 18% of their annual salary. If multiple team members aren’t engaged in the workplace, you’re racking up considerable losses.

The above reasons why employee engagement is essential all come together to engage your team — helping you to increase profits. And with this in mind, let’s get into how to improve employee engagement in your company.

10 employee engagement examples

Employees are motivated in different ways, so you should consider various drivers of employee engagement to take your company in the right direction. Here are 10 proven employee engagement strategies:

Create a culture driven by a mission.
Build a healthy work environment.
Fund personal development.
Create clear paths for progression.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a must
Promote strong internal communication.
Provide top-down transparency.
Recognise good work.
Take onboarding seriously.
Offer opportunities to travel.

1. Create a culture driven by a mission

Having a mission statement is a great way to keep your employees engaged. A clear mission also helps with hiring staff. It’s so important that 44% of millennials aim to work for a company that shares their values, according to a survey by Deloitte.

At Bolt, we aim to make cities for people, not cars. It’s a mission that every team member supports and is motivated to achieve. Having this shared goal helps to keep everyone engaged with the company.

2. Build a healthy work environment

Employees spend a lot of their time in the office. And this is why you need to make them feel comfortable while they’re there. These actions can all help to create a healthy office environment:

Provide healthy snacks.
Support flexible working.
Create comfortable workspaces.

Promoting a healthy work environment will make your team proud to work for your company, improving staff engagement and retention.

3. Fund personal development

Employees want to grow in their roles, yet many individuals can’t reach their full potential, which impacts engagement levels over time. It’s up to you as the employer to actively give team members opportunities to develop.

Creating a work environment where learning is encouraged gives your team room to grow, naturally leading to engagement. To do this, pay employees to go on training courses, attend conferences, or invest in books.

4. Create clear paths for progression

During the interview process, employers often state that there will be chances to progress further. But this doesn’t always end up being the case. And it can be a significant factor behind employee engagement dropping after two years at a company.

Showing employees that you have their long-term ambitions in mind is a great way to increase employee engagement. When your team members know there’s potential to progress within the company, they’ll be far more motivated to put in the highest level of effort — which will do wonders for your retention rates.

5. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a must

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential for companies of every size and industry. And as millennials make up an increasingly large percentage of the global workforce — they’re set to account for 75% by 2025 — it’s more important than ever.

83% of millennials are engaged in their work when they’re part of an inclusive culture; this means that as you welcome future generations into your company, you must do even more as part of your diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy.

To achieve this, you must make diversity, equity, and inclusion part of your company’s core values, embrace cultural differences, and have anti-discrimination policies. At the heart of an effective DEI plan are your team’s thoughts, feedback, and ideas — gather their opinions and listen.

6. Top-down transparency

If you want to know how to boost employee engagement, this is the perfect example.

It costs nothing to create a transparent workplace. Yet the trust it builds between management and employees will significantly impact engagement. To do that, be open with your team about the company’s performance — regular company meetings are a great way to do this.

Don’t forget: it’s essential always to be clear about which information is only for internal use.

7. Strong internal communication

The key to high engagement is communication. To improve it, it’s essential to:

Open up a two-way dialogue with employees;
Send out regular employee surveys;
Invest in communication tools.

8. Recognition

Rewarding your employees for their efforts and achievements is one of the best ways to increase employee engagement.

Speaking with individuals and recognising their achievements will motivate them to do what they do best; this is why regular one-to-ones are a good idea. You can also share good work with the team members in meetings or with a message.

If your team’s working towards set goals or targets, then a bonus or additional perks can increase motivation.

9. Take onboarding seriously

The first day of a new job is daunting for new employees, but this time is when they’re most engaged. You need a solid onboarding plan to maintain and enhance employee engagement during their first few days.

Some ideas include:

Getting a familiar face from the recruitment process to greet them.
Prepare their equipment beforehand so that it’s ready to use straight away.
Make the process as interactive as possible (giving them lots to read without any respite is a surefire way to lose some of that initial engagement).

It’s important to continuously look for opportunities to improve your employee onboarding strategy and collect feedback as much as possible.

10. The opportunity to travel

Allowing your team to get out of the office (or home office) is a key driver of employee engagement. It’s often viewed as a job perk and can greatly boost happiness, productivity, and engagement.

Travel is so important to workers that many would be willing to take a lower-paying job, and 39% of millennials would turn down a job that didn’t have travel opportunities. That’s a significant number when you consider millennials now comprise the most extensive section of the global workforce.

Employee engagement FAQs

How can companies improve employee engagement right now?

Many employee engagement strategies don’t require much planning (and you can make them happen with little to no budget). Giving recognition to employees for their hard work is something you can start doing right now — as is being more transparent from the top down.

If your company doesn’t have a clear mission, make one. At Bolt, we aim to make cities for people, not cars. And our employees are all working towards making this vision become a reality. Working towards a shared goal increases engagement, productivity, and motivation, so create a mission that reminds your team that they’re working towards a more significant cause daily.

How to increase employee engagement

The keys to employee engagement are creating a healthy work environment, shaping your company around a positive mission, and being transparent from top to bottom.

This must be apparent to employees from their first day. Achieving this means planning out a complete onboarding process that lets every staff member know they’re a valued member of your organisation.

How to be an engaged employee

As an engaged employee, you’ll act like an owner regarding your work tasks and strive to meet and exceed your targets. The motivation to achieve these goals should come from the employee engagement strategies implemented by your employer (or employee engagement team).

Drive employee engagement with Bolt Business

As an employer, you can make it easy for your team to travel for work with Bolt Business.

Travel is one of the best ways to increase employee engagement. And whether your team needs to travel for work or you want to reward them with travel perks, you can get it all with Bolt Business.

You can add employees and pay for their work rides with a Bolt Business account. As an admin, you have complete control over how and when they travel and how much they spend.

Plus, all Bolt rides in Europe are carbon-neutral. And a company doing its bit for the planet is an even bigger driver of employee engagement.

Join Bolt Business today to enhance employee engagement in your company.

How to improve employee engagement in your workplace

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