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As leaders interact with their employees, they get a sense of how their people are feeling and how committed they are to their jobs. However, these instincts may not always be accurate. Relying solely on intuition or vibes to measure employee enthusiasm, connection, and motivation isn't enough. To gain a more precise understanding, you should collect real data with an employee engagement survey.
An employee engagement survey provides the numbers and insights needed for effective decision-making. By comparing your latest survey results with data from previous surveys, you can track changes in engagement over time. This is exactly where Milieu Insight's Canvas platform comes in. Being a comprehensive survey tool designed to assess employee engagement, organisations can collect actionable data, pinpoint key drivers of engagement within the workforce, and track progress over time to facilitate continuous improvement.
Why employee engagement matters
- Boosts productivity: Employees who feel like their goals are heard can be more focused and motivated, leading to higher productivity levels. Making sure an employee is heard can push them to go the extra mile and take initiative in their roles.
- Enhances job satisfaction: Well-engaged employees typically report higher job satisfaction and are more likely to stay with their employers. This reduces turnover rates and the associated costs of recruitment and training.
- Fosters innovation: When employees feel valued, they are more likely to think out of the box, share ideas and collaborate. This leads to a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the organisation.
- Drives business performance: Organisations with highly engaged employees tend to outperform those with lower engagement levels. Engaged employees are more aligned with organisational goals and work towards achieving them.
Strategies to improve employee engagement
1. Solve problems before they worsen
When you have a deadline, what can you do with issues that only now reveal their consequences? You have to deal with the issue quickly, and that often means putting a tourniquet on the problem and moving on. When you keep checking the temperature, you address issues — and their roots — before escalation occurs.
Problems only become significant when ignored. Don’t wait to wonder why your employee retention and sales are suddenly plummeting; proactive problem-solving is key.
2. Employ empathy and build trust
Both employees and leaders need ongoing feedback to grow and improve. Make feedback a two-way process that arises naturally from conversation and connection. Open, continuous feedback enables leaders to ask better questions, especially those related to the company’s mission and vision.
When leaders connect with employees and ask insightful questions, they build trust, improving workflow and overall organisational health.
You may think your human resources department handles the human side of things, and that's that. However, thinking that way leaves your company out in the cold. It creates a negative communication gap between leader and employee, leading to #1 risk of losing a talented individual.
Employ empathy and get the whole story when you see a struggling employee, whether their obstacle is personal or work-related. Everyone is human.
4. Share insights transparently
Back to those metrics. Utilise analytics reports on workforce trends and finances to motivate your mission and your employees. Transparency in sharing these insights helps employees feel involved and valued. When employees understand how and why they contribute to the organisation, and see the results of their efforts, they are driven to work even harder.
By making employees active participants in positive change, you foster a sense of ownership and motivation within your team.
5. Opportunity for improvement
Surveys provide a snapshot of employee activity and thinking at a specific moment in time, often when employees are trying to quickly finish the questionnaire and get back to work. This rushed approach can lead to incomplete or insincere responses, like consistently selecting seven to nine on a 10-point scale, which doesn’t offer much insight.
However, these snapshot surveys can help develop strategic plans for months ahead. Beyond standard surveys, measuring social activities and interconnectivity at work can increase employees’ sense of meaning and purpose.
Encourage employees to regularly track their thoughts and feelings and to share feedback weekly. Using better measurement tools, particularly those preferred by employees, can significantly enhance opportunities for improvement and engagement.
6. Take action when it matters
Leaders can engage employees and boost morale through simple, cost-effective actions like meaningful conversations and opportunities for work-life balance.
Since about 99% of meetings are often unproductive, take necessary actions to optimise them. Allow employees to voice their thoughts during conferences, even if they arrive a bit late, and start the session promptly. A strong work culture fosters collaboration and co-creation between employees and leaders, leading to real-time, impactful results.
7. Look for trends
Technology allows employers to spot trends and take immediate action when used correctly. Does your website measure user experience for the customer? What about your employee's "user experience?"
When you identify trends, you can impact engagement in the day-to-day doldrums of routine. You make work meaningful and help the entire staff take responsibility for trends, as well as their engagements levels. Platforms like Slack allow employees to develop activity-based work styles that boost satisfaction scores, and engagement doesn't always equal productivity. So, deepen your definition of engagement.
Milieu is an online survey platform aiming to help you with your market research activities. As a top market research agency Singapore, we enable businesses to thrive in a data-driven economy.
