Employee satisfaction and engagement. It's not just about making employees happy - it's about making the right employees happy. It's about engaging employees to drive the business forward. With high levels of employee engagement, employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the business, and put voluntary effort into their work.
Many businesses wait for an economic or business turnaround to measure or improve employee satisfaction, or assume they are too small to focus on employee engagement.
But by assessing employee satisfaction and engagement now, businesses can retain key employees to help them grow in the future.
7 Ways to Engage and Retain the Right Employees
Yesterday we wrote about employee satisfaction and three best practices to retain the most valued employees. Those three best practices included developing existing employees, communicating about the total compensation package, and connecting employees with senior management.
A recent article by Joseph Folkman in Forbes offered seven more strategies to increase employee satisfaction without increasing compensation.
For small businesses with less financial resources, here's a summary of seven more ways to increase employee satisfaction and retain the right employees.
1. Consistent Values
Rain or shine, in good times or bad, keep the focus on values consistent and clear.
2. Long Term Focus
Every business goes through ups and downs. Employees don’t mind going through difficult times when they see the larger vision - the light at the end of the tunnel.
3. Local Leadership
Make every manager a mini-CEO. As such, every manager should be assigned with assessing the satisfaction of their employees and challenged to find opportunities to improve.
4. Continuous Communication
Tough times? Don't turn down the communication. Turn it up. Over-communicate.
5. Collaboration
Stretching resources? Collaborating and problem-solving in teams tends to make significant improvements in the ability to share resources and work together.
6. Opportunities for Development
Your business might be booming, and the pace of business might be booming too. But don't pass up the opportunity to teach employees new skills and develop new capabilities. Focus on internal training, and stretch employees with job assignments.
7. Speed and Agility
Don't be afraid of making (or allowing employees to make) fast decisions and moving on opportunity.
Read the full Forbes article here.
What are your tips or strategies for employee satisfaction and engagement? Leave a comment below.
