Employee engagement levels can be make or break when it comes to running a successful business.
For one, high employee engagement typically translates to low employee turnover and higher profits. With the price of replacing each lost worker estimated at anywhere between 1.5 and 2 times their annual salary, firms need to retain their graduate employees.
Since happy employees are also known for treating customers and clients better, an engaged workforce will also lead to more sales and increased revenue which is what all British employees want to see.
Despite these bottom line benefits, many firms are failing to prioritise employee engagement. In order to help you ensure your highly skilled graduate employees remain engaged and on the ball, here are five sure-fire steps to success:
1. Maximise your time
Time is a common problem for all business departments, with us all being guilty of spending too much time thinking about the day-to-day tasks we must complete and forgetting about the bigger picture.
The minute you show your team of employees that you have the time to spend with them, you’ll find your relationship will open wide and a freedom of speech will be naturally born. This will ultimately lead to them feeling you have time for them and generating higher engagement.
2. Give power to the people
More commonly than not, disengaged employees are made and not born. Your young graduate workforce may begin their role feeling enthused about the job and the company but a number of factors can cause this to be short-lived.
Factors that can cause employees to become disengaged will include: poor management, lack of visibility of promotions and benefits etc. This unfortunately falls into your court as the employer. As these problems can often be difficult to both see and fix, they can get out of hand before they’re even noticed and that’s why it’s important to have a system of engagement in place.
You should begin this process by ensuring each team leader or manager of a team records the goals and progress of their group and involves each employee in this. This will allow the individuals to be part of their own success and progress while also measuring how their career will develop over the upcoming years.
3. Think outside of the survey
Are you guilty of using employee surveys to understand how your graduate workforce is feeling? This is unsurprising. More and more employers are using surveys as their only way to gain feedback and measure employee satisfaction.
However, if you’re honest with yourselves you’ll know these surveys have limitations and at times aren’t very effective.
In order for these to be successful you should have on-going feedback methods in place to ensure you get the whole picture of how your staff are feeling rather than a snapshot. You can do this by regularly holding Q&A sessions along with having a HR Manager that your employees can engage with and confide in.
4. Ensure everything is intuitive
With businesses now being shrouded in technology and the digital world, software is often changing. As a result, many employees, both older and younger, are having problems adapting to it and understanding how it works for their role.
In order to ensure that any tech updates run smoothly and fit seamlessly into your business you should provide each individual employee with training. This will allow them the time to come to terms with the new platforms and understand why things needed upgrading.
This won’t only increase engagement but will also increase sales.
5. Ensure all managers are involved
In many firms, the top managers and directors will have very little contact with the younger members of staff. This must change. In order for your younger employees to feel passionate and engaged with their job, it’s important they see it from all sides. Remember, this generation of workers prefer a more fluid way of working and this is exactly how to achieve that.
There have been many studies to show that disengagement is largely due to poor relationships between employee and managers/directors. These managers have the power to mentor and push your graduate employees in the right direction while giving them the tools they need to progress.
