How to Motivate and Engage Your Employees?

Acquiring top talent and retaining them is one of the biggest challenges faced by HR professionals today. 

Do you know that the average employee tenure for all occupations is just 4.2 years?

Much of this high attrition rate is due to the ever-growing work opportunities and remote working model used by many companies today. This means, regardless of where a person is located, he or she can find a job in any part of the world and work remotely.

While this flexibility has been great for the labor market, it has made a HR’s job a lot more difficult as they try to retain employees within their respective organizations.

If you’re one such HR professional, this article will talk about a few strategies that have been successful in employee engagement and the resultant retention.

Understand the Employee Engagement Levels

The first step to formulate a strategy is to understand the current situation.

Employee engagement can be broadly classified into three types and they are:

• Actively disengaged

• Not engaged

• Actively engaged

Out of the three, actively disengaged employees are the most difficult to handle because they tend to be critical of any overtures or initiatives and may not be forthcoming to adopt them. 

Nevertheless, your strategy should be based on the engagement level of each employee instead of having a one-size-fits-all approach that pans across the entire organization.

As the actively disengaged employees are the most difficult to motivate and retain, let’s look at some employee engagement strategies for this group.

Set Goals

Setting goals can motivate a lot of people as it gives a routine to their daily activities and can propel them to work towards something. Also, some employees like to have a glimpse of the finish line and race towards it.

These goals can be weekly or monthly, depending on the nature of your business and an employee’s role within it. Frequent reviews and motivation can help them to achieve these goals.

However, ensure that the goals are realistic and done in consultation with the concerned employee. Otherwise, it can backfire and may even cause an employee to quit due to high stress levels.

Recognize the Efforts

Every human being strives for recognition in some form or the other. It is an acknowledgment of the time and effort they put into a particular task.

This is why recognizing the work of employees, regardless of how small or mundane, can act as a big motivation for them.

Flexibility 

Striking a balance between personal and professional lives is the oasis that every employee wishes for. Though an absolute balance may not be possible, you can, as an organization, provide a certain measure of flexibility to employees to help them get closer to it.

This can be in the form of flexible working hours, remote working, etc, based on your organization’s line of business and the employee’s job profile.

Create an Inclusive Environment

Employees are likely to be actively disengaged when they have no clear idea of what the organization is doing and the wider goals. So, be more inclusive and provide as much information as possible to employees, so they understand how their efforts go towards the common goals.

Thus, these are some strategies that can boost employee engagement within your organization.