For employee engagement to thrive and last, everyone in the company plays a part – from HR managers to senior leadership, from employees to executives. In this article, we share a breakdown of responsibilities and provide tips to take action and start improving employee engagement now.

The Role of Senior Leadership

A helpful infographic from DecisionWise provides a breakdown of responsibilities for employee engagement by individual roles in the company. According to the infographic, senior leadership must:

  • Demonstrate their commitment to employee engagement by fostering trust, celebrating successes and listening
  • Set the tone and priorities for the company
  • Communicate the mission, values and company strategy

Tips for implementation

In an article for Rasmussen University, writer Ashley Brooks shared employee engagement strategies from HR managers. They suggested leadership could improve employee engagement in the following ways:

  • Offer a competitive salary
  • Ask for employees’ suggestions
  • Be transparent
  • Get creative with benefits
    • Subsidized childcare or elder care
    • Options to bring your child to work if your original childcare falls through
    • Free credit counseling services
    • Onsite yoga or meditation
    • Paid time off for volunteering
  • Ensure employees get respect
  • Listen to employee concerns
  • Celebrate successes
  • Prioritize mental and physical well-being
  • Invest in employees’ futures
  • Create opportunities for employees to use and develop relevant skills
  • Create an inviting workspace

Additional ways you might enhance your office space or promote the well-being of your employees include:

  • Playing instrumental music
  • Providing snacks
  • Offering relaxation areas
  • Scheduling team-building activities
  • Encouraging breaks
  • Offering discounts on wellness services or providing on-site access

The Role of Human Resources

DecisionWise says the human resources department bears responsibility to:

  • Provide employees with the resources they need and support for success
  • Structure opportunities for internal growth and development
  • Create policies and programs that support employee engagement

Tips for implementation

Supporting the success of employees begins with providing inspirational and educational onboarding experiences, and following through with ongoing initiatives that boost employee satisfaction and thorough training (including the essentials for their primary role, but also training that fills them in on the company as a whole, explains the company’s values and goals and their role in executing them, clarifies employee benefits, and details the value of other employee-related programs), and career development planning.

It’s important that, whenever possible, the strategies implemented to improve employee satisfaction and engagement extend to your remote employees. Teams in diverse locations need to “still feel connected and able to voice any concerns,” wrote Brooks. “Scheduling regular one-on-one feedback sessions, hosting virtual team game nights or offering a stipend for memberships to at-home exercise programs” could be ways to make remote workers feel included and heard.

How Managers and Employees Contribute to Strong Employee Engagement

Of course, no implementation of employee engagement strategies is complete or successful without the ongoing support of management and the adoption and participation of individual employees.

According to DecisionWise, to help ensure sustained employee engagement, managers need to:

  • Coach employees and create opportunities for growth and development
  • Provide clear goals, expectations and frequent feedback to employees
  • Create a positive team culture and perception of the organization as a whole

And to amplify and encourage employee engagement, employees should be willing to:

  • Bring their unique set of values, priorities, needs and expectations to work
  • Choose to engage (or not) based on their individual needs and expectations
  • Be willing to take responsibility for personal growth and development

Tips for implementation

Take stock of your current strategies and identify areas for improvement. Is your onboarding experience exciting? Are your training programs thorough? Do employees feel safe at work or are there improvements you could be making? Do you talk about a company culture or do you encourage and exemplify it? If you have remote employees, do they feel included?

How are you encouraging employee engagement, satisfaction and retention? Does your employee benefits package go beyond the essentials/expected to show how much you care about your employees’ mental and financial health and well-being? Could you be doing more to protect your employees, properties, or cashflow? Learn more about the employEZ family of PEOs and reach out to see how we can help: info@employ-ez.com.