Tips to increase employee engagement

Hoping for a better worker experience in 2018? You’re not alone. In the world of human resources, disengaged employees—those who are lackluster about their work– are a huge concern. They cost companies thousands of dollars in lost productivity, drag down morale, and leak their lack of interest to customers, all of which impact growth and profitability. Worst of all, disengaged employees aren’t rare: over 70% of workers fall into this category.

But now more than ever, business leaders are determined to turn this around, and these strategies as reported by Martiz Motivation are some of the ways they’re doing it:

• Flex time: The ability to work from home, take paid leave, and adjust schedules to better suit workers’ lifestyles, tops the list of employee hopes, and supports increased engagement.
• Seamless Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS): If you bank online, you understand its convenience for checking balances, making payments, and monitoring accounts. That same kind of accessibility is increasingly available to workers for employee information, too, from performance reviews to benefits information to resources to improve productivity, now, for many, all easily retrieved online.
• Increased support of the gig economy: About one fourth of the workforce operates as freelancers, and more and more, businesses are contracting with them. This will continue to grow, as more workers choose this career path, and worker shortages increase.
• Pulse checks on team member happiness: The once-yearly employee satisfaction survey is moving aside for ongoing quickie polls—many sent through smart phone communications—to gauge worker opinions and status.
• Job crafting to better align responsibilities with strengths: While you may have the same job title as a coworker, your specific duties may differ, as tasks become increasingly customized. If you love ferreting out solutions to complex problems, for instance, requesting a career conversation with your boss could result in you doing more of that, ultimately keeping you happier and more engaged.

Bottom line, for businesses to flourish, employees—the lifeblood of their operations—need to thrive too. Improving worker experiences can deliver results that keep both sides more satisfied.