How to Create an Authentic Employee Engagement Program

Building a successful business starts with having engaged employees. That’s because engaged workers are more productive than their disengaged peers. They are also in better moods, more likely to lend a helping hand to their colleagues, and often think about ways to make their company even better without even being asked.

Unfortunately, less than one-third of employees say they’re engaged at work — which means a significant majority of workers at the average company aren’t too into their jobs.

If your company falls into that category, all hope is not lost. By building an employee engagement program and focusing on motivating your employees, you can improve your engagement stats. As a result, your staff will look forward to coming into work every day and will go above and beyond more often than not.

But it’s not enough to simply decide to build an engagement program. You have to build one that works, one that’s authentic. Here’s how you can do that:

01. Ask your employees what they think about their jobs

In order to build a successful engagement program, you first need to understand how your employees perceive their jobs and what areas, if any, they feel are lacking. Prior to launching your engagement program, it is critical to gauge employee sentiment. You can do this by having meetings to discuss the state of the company and ideas for improvement. If your employees prefer to answer those kinds of questions anonymously, use pulse surveys to get the information you need to construct the foundation of your program.

02. Give employees opportunities to learn and grow

Today’s workers care a great deal about professional development. Yet according to our Engagement Report, only 25% of workers believe their companies offer adequate opportunities for growth. Successful engagement programs prove to employees that management not only cares about the work they do, but they also care about the employees and their careers. Invest the required resources to enable your workers to attend conferences and seminars. You can also let them pursue pet projects and work in other departments every so often to broaden their experience.

03. Work hard, play hard

Engagement isn’t just about work. It also involves growing close with members of the team. After all, our Engagement Report revealed that coworkers are the number one thing employees like about their jobs. Fun team-building activities are a cornerstone of any successful engagement program, so plan them regularly.

04. Recognize your employees’ hard work

When you work hard on a project and no one seems to notice, it can be disheartening to say the least. Successful engagement programs place a high emphasis on employee recognition. When your workers do a fantastic job, by all means let them know you’re paying attention.

05. Check in with your staff regularly

Your employee engagement program is always a work in progress. Once it’s implemented, you have to remember it’s not set in stone. From time to time, ask your employees what they think about the program and what they would change about it if they could. You never know when someone will come up with a truly transformative idea that can strengthen your program that much more.

Creating an authentic engagement program is hard work. But it’s not impossible. Do your due diligence and keep your employees involved every step of the way. That’s how you build a team that believes in your company’s mission and lives to serve your customers to the best of their abilities every day.

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