With the UK starting to feel like a level of normality is resuming, business owners are now able to re-focus and plan for the future. I am always telling my clients that their most expensive resource is their people, so they need to invest in them. There has been so much disruption over the last two years, that I really do believe Organisations need to re-set their engagement strategy.
If you are a small business owner reading this thinking you are too small for an engagement strategy, then I am afraid I have to disagree. It does not matter how many staff you employ; you want them to be engaged and happy.
Why is Employee Engagement important?
Employees make decisions and take actions every day that can affect your workforce and organisation. The way your company treats employees and how employees treat one another can positively affect their actions. What sort of improvements will you see if you improve engagement?
Well according to the experts;
- Reduction in Absenteeism
- Reduction in safety incidents
- Reduction in turnover
- Increase in customer loyalty/engagement
- Increase in productivity
- Increase in profitability
What business owner does not want all of the above?
What steps can you take?
The starting point for me right now is ensuring that the HPC/oneHR culture is embedded within my business. I have taken on new staff during the pandemic…. one of which I have never met as he is based in Abu Dhabi. I am not sure if the culture of my organisation has been effectively embedded and I know through the many discussions I have had with fellow HR leaders this has been a challenge across the world. I would therefore suggest that you go back to basics first.
- Does everyone in your business know your Vision and Mission Statement? Do you even have one?
- Do you have company values? Are they still fit for purpose? Does everyone in your business know them…. be honest 😊
- Is your Organisational structure right? The last two years have seen a difference in the way in which we communicate, work and client’s expectations may have changed. We therefore need to evolve and adjust our structure to align to this.
- Do all of your people have a clearly defined job description? This is such an important question and is lacking in so many businesses. We can’t expect our people to perform if they are unclear on what it is they are expected to do.
- Do you have clearly defined KPIs? This links to above, your people need to know what is expected of them in their role and how you are going to measure it.
Communication
Once you have ironed out the above, then it is time to ensure that they are communicated and embedded into your business. There are so many ways that you can achieve this, but the key is to make sure that this is a continual process and just becomes the norm. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing;
- Away Day – Lots of my clients are kicking off this year with an Away day and communicating their Vision and Values again. This can be an excellent way to also have some sort of team building exercises too.
- Regular Team Meetings – This is very important, get them in the diary and have a clear Agenda to follow. You need to continually communicate to your people and remind them of how important their role is in the overall success of the business.
- Embed your Values into the employee lifecycle – Think about all the steps your people go through with you from Recruitment through to Exit interview when they leave. How can you embed your values into each process?
I could write about this topic all day….. so I will leave it here for now and talk to you about engagement surveys next week.
I guarantee if you take the actions above you will see a difference in performance within your team.