Do You Know How to Engage Your Employees?

Have you thought about “engaging your employees?” What does it mean to you to engage employees? If you are not engaging your employees, you are losing out on quite a bit and risking the loss of employees who can help your organization reach its goals. When you don’t engage your employees – you lose them to another organization that will ensure they are engaged.

What is Employee Engagement?

First, a definition of “employee engagement.”  According to Wikipedia, “Employee engagement, also called work engagement or worker engagement, is a business management concept.  An ‘engaged employee’ is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests.”

Another definition, by David Zinger, an expert on employee engagement, notes that “Employee engagement is the art and science of engaging people in authentic and recognized connections to strategy, roles, performance, organization, community, relationships, customers, development, energy and happiness to leverage, sustain and transform work into results.”

Mr. Zinger has created the Zinger Employee Engagement Model, as shown in the image below:

Mr. Zinger describes the 14 elements of the model as follows¹:

So…Why Engage Employees?

Employee engagement is a widely discussed topic in organizations.  I hear about it from my clients on a regular basis! It is directly linked to employee satisfaction and employee performance, the performance and growth of the organization, the satisfaction of clients and bottom line business results.  Smart organizations focus on engaging their employees to achieve results for the organization as a whole.  This doesn’t mean they are only working for the benefit of the organization, but also for the benefit of the employees.  Employees who are engaged are vested in the organization – they are excited about the work they do and strive to do their best everyday to help the organization succeed.  Organizations who engage in their employees reduce turnover and improve their client satisfaction overall. They also show improved teamwork and morale.  People want to work for organizations that engage their employees.  These are the companies you see reach the Top 100 Best Places to Work.

How Can I Engage Employees?

There are many ways to engage employees:

• Support self-branding efforts as such efforts will benefit the organization too
• Know your employees – what is important to them – both inside and outside of the workplace
• Help them develop their skills and build their knowledge to enable them to grow with the organization
• Develop reward and recognition programs to support engagement
• Listen to their ideas and implement their suggestions
• Know what their goals are and help them to achieve those goals
• Offer constructive feedback regularly
• Help employees achieve a work-life balance
• Communicate frequently – about what is going on in the organization, the department, etc. Make your employees feel a part of it all.

Need more ideas?  Join The Employee Engagement Network. Founded and led by David Zinger, The Employee Engagement Network has over 2,000 members who are passionate about employee engagement.  I am a member of The Employee Engagement Network and find it a great place to engage with others through discussion topics and numerous groups.  Just recently, The Employee Engagement Network released their second e-book entitled: Employee Engagement: Powerful Sentences of Advice for Managers.  (I’m pleased to say I was one of the 100 + members who contributed!)   There is some great advice from contributors to the e-book, including:

“Engagement is about capturing the hearts and minds of your team, open your heart and show you believe in them and truly care about them as people and they will move mountains.” (Tom Rausch)

“Involve employees in decisions that will affect them, they may have some great ideas that you haven’t thought of and will be more supportive of the final outcome.” (Gina Abudi)

“Reach out and engage your employees everyday…learn their names and know their stories.” (Peter Hart)

“Don’t just listen to your people but also act on what they’re telling you.” (Fred Nickols)

“Show up a lot and have lots of conversations.” (Wally Bock)

These are just some of the bits of advice by over 100 individuals who are passionate about their role in employee engagement.

So…what’s your advice?  How do you engage employees?  How do you want to be engaged?  Share your thoughts and ideas with others in the Comments field below. Thanks!

1. Many thanks to David Zinger for providing The Zinger Employee Engagement Model for this article.  Learn more about David Zinger and his thoughts on employee engagement at his website.