According to Jon Clifton, the CEO at Gallup, “In this year’s State of the Global Workplace report, we estimate that low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion. That’s 9% of global GDP — enough to make the difference between success and failure for humanity. Poor management leads to lost customers and lost profits, but it also leads to miserable lives.”

So what can we do to change this… start focusing on the experience of our employees.

There have been massive leaps in terms of how we recruit, select and onboard employees. We know the importance of communicating throughout the processes, enabling new joiners with the information and tools they need when they need them, but this has almost created a honeymoon phase. In the first few weeks or months, they have their rose-coloured glasses on, they’ve bought into the vision and the values, and are ready to take on the world but 3 months in, 6 months, a year… they have lost their passion, their engagement is low and they may even be looking for other jobs.

Post the onboarding phase, leaders have forgotten how to engage, develop and reward employees; they have often got too caught up in the day-to-day of meeting deadlines, fighting fires, and managing budgets and have stopped focusing on their people.

Here’s how you can get your team back on track, engaged and ready to put those rose-coloured glasses back on:

Engage

Recognise Individuality

We know that we as leaders, and as people, have elements of work that we love, the things that bring us joy, the elements that we produce or decisions we contribute to where we are proud of our input.

Our team members feel the same, spending some time understanding each team member’s strengths and what work they love, allows you to better allocate projects and tasks to your team – not only increasing motivation and engagement but also creating synergy by using their strengths to compensate for others’ weaknesses.

According to Clifton Strengths, “employees who receive strengths-based development have:

• Up to 23% higher employee engagement
• Up to 18% increased performance
• Up to 73% lower attrition

Enable Employee Autonomy

According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, “Two American psychologists, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci [stated] self-determination is made up of three components: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They defined autonomy as “the desire to be the causal agent of one’s own life.”

That’s exactly what autonomy is, the ability to be in control of your work – when you want to do it and how. This is often a scary concept for leaders, is work going to be delivered on time and meet quality standards and expectations? Yes, if you have the right structures in place.

1. Set and properly communicate expectations.
2. Enable visibility to monitor progress.
3. Provide feedback.

These three key actions can be enabled by having a sound communication and collaboration model that highlights the principles of the way we work, the expectations of what needs to be done and by when (task management) and a free flow of information and feedback enabling your team to make the necessary decisions and complete their work – enabling a sense of purpose and contribution to the organisation.

Develop

Create Continuous Learning Experiences

Continuous learning doesn’t mean sending your team on a course once a year to gain knowledge or skills on a topic that you deem valuable.

Continuous learning is understanding your employees’ aspirations and enabling opportunities for them to learn and grow. This could be anything from attending strategic meetings to assisting on a new project or shadowing a fellow employee to more formal learning such as an in-person or digital course.

For employees to feel engaged, they need to feel in charge of their careers and learning and they want to feel supported by you. Don’t wait for a performance appraisal to find this out, discuss these regular one-on-ones and get to know your team members.

Reward

Rewards and Recognition

We all know the feeling we get when someone recognises the work we have done, it’s that sense of pride and achievement. It’s no wonder then that rewarding and recognising employees can boost employee engagement, increase motivation and productivity and contribute towards a great team and company culture.

The great thing about rewards and recognition is that you can do a lot with little – a simple thank you or well done, a note to the team recognising someone’s work or contribution, badges for specific achievements or a peer-selected employee of the month award. Starting off with small things that don’t break the bank goes a long way for individuals in your team.

Frameworks and Models
Resources
Events and Campaigns

Gallup (n.d.). CliftonStrengths for Teams and Managers. Retrieved July 20, 2023, from https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253832/cliftonstrengths-for-teams.aspx

CLIFTON, J. (2023, June 13). Economic Growth Is Slowing: How Should Leaders Respond? Retrieved July 20, 2023, from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/506825/economic-growth-slowing-leaders-respond.aspx

Reisinger , H., & Fetterer, D. (2021, October 29). Forget Flexibility. Your Employees Want Autonomy. Retrieved July 20, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2021/10/forget-flexibility-your-employees-want-autonomy