Employee engagement is integral to business success. Not only does it make your workers’ lives better, but it can also increase business profitability. However, effectively engaging a global team can be hard - and it goes way beyond offering competitive salaries.
Fortunately, we know a thing or two about increasing employee engagement across borders. With a team of over 400 people in 50+ countries, our People team work hard to keep our colleagues engaged. So below, we’ll show you how to improve employee engagement in five effective ways.
1. Create a Values & Mission-aligned Culture
Boosting employee engagement starts with your company culture. Culture impacts every aspect of your business, including how you create important policies and processes, what behaviors you expect from employees, and who you even hire in the first place.
Most importantly, your culture should be aligned with the company’s values, mission, and vision. These will give you a clear and purposeful direction as you develop your culture. For example, one of Omnipresent’s values is “curious,” so we offer our team a learning and development budget so they can explore their professional curiosities.
By instilling values in your culture and then hiring people that align with them, you will create a virtuous circle that leads to better engagement, enhanced retention, and happier employees.
2. Provide a Productive Physical & Digital Environment
Giving your employees a comfortable and productivity-enhancing workspace is key to increasing engagement. This means providing them with all the equipment they need to perform well, including a high-spec computer, ergonomic chair, spacious desk, and other office essentials. If your employees work remotely from around the globe, you should consider paying for their home office setup. You could do this through a stipend or a remote equipment provider like our partner Hofy.
A great workplace environment doesn’t just cover the physical space your employees work in but the digital space too. This is particularly important for distributed teams, where communication and collaboration can be challenging. So be sure to provide them with the right tools, including company-wide communication tools like Slack and team or role-specific tools such as image editing software.
3. Train Your Managers to Become Great Leaders
According to research by Gallop, 70% of the variance in team engagement is explained by the quality of the manager or team leader. So it’s abundantly clear that managers play an important role in enhancing (or hindering) employee engagement. There’s the old saying: “People don’t leave companies, they leave managers.” That’s why training your managers to be good leaders is crucial - especially if they’re managing remotely.
When designing your training program, consider these top qualities that great remote managers possess:
- Clear direction and goals for the team
- Excellent communication skills and processes
- Psychological safety and trust
- Empathy and prioritization of team health and well-being
- Coach-like mentality
- Ability to provide regular candid feedback and praise
- Desire for continuous self-improvement
For example, you could provide training on how to hold an effective 1-1 meeting, so your managers can get the most out of their conversations with direct reports.
4. Empower Your Colleagues to Grow Professionally & Personally
Providing ample learning and development (L&D) opportunities can help you significantly increase employee engagement. In fact, a study by Udemy revealed that 80% of workers felt learning new skills would make them more engaged.
Providing an L&D budget for your team is a great way to foster growth. This empowers employees to choose how they want to enhance their personal and professional development, whether it be enrolling in courses or buying industry books.
Creating a career development framework can help you provide clarity on how team members can progress at your company, either upwards or laterally. These frameworks also help your organization eliminate biases and enhance fairness within the internal mobility process.
5. Actively Listen to Employee Needs & Take Action
You could be doing everything in your power to increase employee engagement, but if you don’t listen to your team’s feedback, you won’t get very far. So taking frequent pulse checks on engagement is vital.
Carry out regular engagement surveys to gauge how your employees are feeling and identify areas for improvement. Most importantly, take action on their feedback. If your employees are feeling overly stressed, for example, try to get to the root of the cause and weed it out. If workers don’t understand the direction the business is heading in, provide clear guidance and goals.
Ultimately, your employees are fundamental to the overall success of your business, so shaping your engagement initiatives around their feedback and needs is invaluable.
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