When it comes to managing employee performance, human resources teams look at a number of factors. One of the most important elements is engagement.
Business leaders want to know their workers are interested in the job at hand and whether that enthusiasm will remain for the foreseeable future. While there are plenty of actions employees can take to further their concentration, organizations also have to foster engagement for strong results.
Here is a closer look at five steps HR personnel can take to improve engagement in the workplace:
1. Start at the beginning
Maintaining interest in the office starts by recruiting and hiring the right people. It’s no longer enough for HR teams to solely look at education and experience as their primary indicators of a good candidate. Instead, recruitment leaders should hire new employees based on certain traits and behaviors, according to Entrepreneur. They should bring on people who showcase particular qualities, including a good attitude. For those applicants companies just can’t pass up – but who maybe lack one of two skills – organizations could offer training.
2. Provide coaching for management
Improving engagement requires work at all levels of a company. That means new hires and tenured employees must both be factored into the equation when devising strategies for increasing interest. To receive the best results, HR teams need to coach managers on how to build effective engagement methods for their workers, according to Gallup. Since these leaders hold a fair amount of responsibility in the outcome, supervisors’ progress should also be tracked. By comparing figures over time, organizations can discover which engagement tactics worked best.
“Engagement teams should ask employees for their opinions.”
3. Ask for insight
If tried-and-true methods aren’t working, company leaders have to look elsewhere for engagement advice. Who better to ask than employees themselves? HR teams can host round tables, one-on-ones or town hall meetings to gain insight into what workers feel would improve their interest and concentration, according to Forbes. Some of the information may be hard to swallow, but honest answers make for a better workplace for everyone.
4. Find positive in the negative
Whenever changes are implemented, setbacks are almost always guaranteed. Instead of coming down on employees and themselves for poor engagement, company leaders should look for the positive elements of these situations. People feel negativity more prominently than they do progress, so HR personnel should attempt to find the good in the obstacles they face, according to Monster. When workers experience slowdowns, executives should attempt to extract value. That means finding the reason why a particular action didn’t work and putting a plan in place to avoid the same outcome the next time around. Over time, these little mistakes will turn into huge advances.
5. Don’t waste endings
At some point and for various reasons, employees’ time with their company has to come to an end. Yet, these conclusions are just as important to improving engagement as workers’ beginnings with an employer. While considering interest and focus is important at the start of a person’s career, so is hearing their feedback at the end. To accomplish this goal, HR leaders should conduct exit interviews, according to CIO. These discussions allow departing workers to share the reasons why they’re leaving and how they think the company could improve over time. The information gleaned from these interviews is valuable and should be utilized to further enhance engagement strategies.
The upcoming Staffing World conference – held October 25-27 in San Diego, California – will feature a helpful session regarding improving employee engagement as well as a number of other staffing concerns. Timerack will be in attendance at the event to provide additional insight and instruction on this issue as well as many others.