COVID has undoubtedly turned all the tables and has revolutionized your life in ways you never imagined. Right from your personal life to the work-life, you have resiliently adapted to the changes that occurred in the previous year. Among many other major things, working from home has become another mission for many of us. From balancing that thin line between work and life to maintain productivity, you have come a long way together. In this tough time, how do you think your managers would have maintained employee engagement in your organization.
This is one of the biggest challenges corporates and businesses have faced and even overcome. Do you want to know how? Let’s unravel these secrets together.
What is employee engagement? How important is it?
Employee engagement refers to the extent to which the employees of your organization or enterprise are involved in their work-life and how effectively they perform daily tasks.
How often do you see your colleagues being cheerful and ready to take up the challenges at work wholeheartedly? Well, we cannot deny that their performance is directly driven by their engagement. So yes, the productivity and the efficacy of an organization hugely depend on their employees’ engagement.
What causes employee disengagement?
Some of the factors which are responsible for the disengagement of the workers are:
- The relationship you have with your leaders, whether you trust them and have a healthy relationship with them.
- We often need validation, or we can say feedback from our team members or leaders for the work we have done for them. On not getting the feedback, it’s a general tendency to not put as many efforts we have put earlier.
- Lack of transparent, honest, and interesting communication among the workers and managers can cause less interest in work.
- Little or no career growth can make anyone lose interest in their work
- Recognition of the work that employees do plays an important role in uplifting them.
How to set the right approach to employee engagement?
I would not say that identifying the disengaged employees is very difficult but yes, hard to find. So do we set a correct approach to find them?
- The first clue is the poor performance of the worker. This can include late submissions or not being accountable for their mistakes.
- Disengaged workers are more likely to sabotage themselves. They will participate less in team discussions or hardly come up with new ideas.
- A lot of subdued frustration can be seen in workers who are not enjoying their work.
- Employees may end up taking too many leaves in the name of taking a break from their routine.
How employee engagement increases productivity?
Engaged employees can contribute a lot towards the productivity of their team, and consequently of the organization. But how?
· Employees who are really encouraged ought to contribute more towards innovating new ideas and implementing them.
· Happy workers motivate their colleagues more which drives them towards growth and displays better teamwork skills.
· Upgrading their skills comes naturally to the engaged employees and this indirectly benefits the company in the long run.
· The strong bond between workers and managers forms a strong team which in turn provides better performance due to better understanding.
How managers should handle employee disengagement?
As a manager, what will be your responsibilities to grow the engagement of your subordinates?
· It is very important to identify the skills of your workers and give them enough chances to make use of them or to enhance them.
· Always communicate with your workers and let them know how their performance is being affected and ask them how you can help them?
· Take care of the goal of your employees and how you can help them to achieve it?
· Give your workers a chance to speak out. Build a healthy conversation style with them.
· Always make sure to give them feedback on their work and appreciate any good work they have done.
Is there any instance when you have felt disengaged at work and how did you come out of it? What will you suggest to people who are facing the same situation currently? Share with us in the comments below. Happy working!!
