It’s a given that engaging employees is vital for long term success of a business. So how do you take a typical team, and create proud ambassadors for your organisation?
In this article, we’ll explain the foundations of engaging employees, using the 5C strategy.
In any organisation, there are bound to have a couple of employees that would be labelled as ‘Zombies’’. They head to the office, work at their station or desk and leave for home at the end of the day; leading a mundane work life. This is when employees are not productive at work and they become a liability instead of an asset to the company.
Clever companies are constantly working on engaging employees in order to make them enthusiastic about going to work in the morning, and avoiding creating more ‘Zombies’. They understand that people who are actively engaged will assist in the profitability and longevity of the company.
This HR Exchange Network article summarises recent 2018 research with “those in the top quartile of engagement see 10% higher customer metrics, 17% higher productivity, 20% higher sales and 21% higher profitability“. It’s obvious that engaging employees needs to be in every leaders vision.
“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.”
– Simon Sinek
Here are the five C’s that are the foundation of clever employee engagement strategies:
Care
When a manager actively shows they care for their team, employees will soon realise that the company is not all about making profits or growing market share to the expense of everything else.
Employees will know that the company that they are working for are also interested in their well-being. This results in a team of people who are actively invested in the physical and mental well-being of each other, and tend to be more productive, happier, and result in higher profits for the company.
Our article on making employees feel appreciated and valued can give you further insights into this strategy.
Connect
Get connected with employees by having informal chats regularly, as well as having regular performance appraisals or reviews to make sure that they are satisfied with everything in their immediate workplace; ask questions around workplace environment, their thoughts on colleagues and even their workload and daily tasks.
When companies show that they welcome feedback and use the feedback provided, employees will feel comfortable in approaching their managers openly, and without prejudice.
Coach
Successful leaders who create fantastic teams and culture are often found to actively coach and guide their employees, rather than barking orders or micromanaging them. Encouraging employees in this way will help you retain, empower and grow your talented staff. They will tend to stay longer, be happier and is a fantastic method of engaging employees.
By constantly striving to coach your team, employees will feel useful and would want to achieve or try harder the next time instead of feeling dismissed. See our article on great methods of coaching employees for ways to achieve this.
Engaging employees. Image: Pexels
Contribute
You should encourage employees to make their own contributions and sharing their own ideas. Employees want to know that their suggestions are as equally as important as management, and that their contributions can play a significant part in making the company successful. It’s that old adage, ‘no idea is ever a stupid idea’.
So don’t simply dismiss ideas raised by the team if you feel they do not fit; instead thank the person, and then explain and justify why the idea may not execute well within the business. When ideas are dismissed without explanation, employees tend to be fearful of contributing in the future, as they are afraid of being rejected once again.
Congratulate
You should work on creating the habit to regularly praise or congratulate those employees who have done something excellent; whether it be at work or in their personal lives. Praising employees in front of their co-workers is also a big confidence boost to those on the receiving end of your compliments.
By doing so, employees will feel that they are being noticed and their presence in the company is needed. This article on why peer recognition is important may give you further insights.
The 5C’s to engaging employees
In summary
Engaging employees successfully will make a positive difference in modern organisations. It should be one of the priorities in the company as employees are the backbone of the company and they are the ones that help the company to succeed.
Leaders and managers should try and make an on-going effort in staying connected with, and engaging employees for the company to achieve greatness year after year.
The 5C strategy for engaging employees, once again, is as simple as these five words;
- Care
- Connect
- Coach
- Contribute
- Congratulate
Be following these five simple steps to employee engagement, you are setting your organisation on a path of improved employee relations and general workplace happiness. You could also get tips on how to find happiness at work to help with your employee engagement.
