The Role of Leadership in Crafting Successful Employee Engagement Strategies
It used to be that if you needed to work, you had no choice but to accept the boss that came with the job. Today, leaders must compete for talent by making people want to come to work for them. More than any other factor, leadership defines workplaces. Although work itself changes over time, as does the definition of what makes a good leader, workplace cultures have always been crafted by the critical role leadership plays in cultivating it.
Concepts like positive work environment, employee satisfaction, and work-life balance weren’t even part of the thought process until 20 or 30 years ago. Today, one might say that employer support in the “pursuit of happiness” has become a primary expectation for employees. Building the positive workplace environment people want requires leaders to craft successful employee engagement strategies that continually change with the times.
Understanding Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is an abstract concept that describes the emotional connection employees feel with their organization. It grows out of how well employees’ emotional and social needs are met; whether they feel competent in their work; and how well they feel their work contributes to a higher purpose.
Engagement is intertwined with the concept of “employee experience” (EX), which Great Place to Work describes as “essentially how your employees experience the company, from relationships with their manager, to work accomplishments, to the technology they need to do their job successfully.”
Gallup distinguishes the two concepts in this way:
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Employee engagement is an ongoing part of the employee experience.
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Employee experience is the journey an employee takes with your company (from recruitment through exit).
Today’s perspective on how employees should be treated in the workplace requires us, as employers, to create the same positive experience inside our companies that we provide to our customers. In essence, it’s thinking of employees as your internal customers and developing effective strategies with that mindset.
Benefits of Employee Engagement
Employee engagement grows directly out of a positive workplace culture. You can measure the effects of high engagement through increases in:
- Efficiency and quality
- Individual responsibility
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Innovation and creative solutions
- Health and wellbeing
- Safety records
- Sales and customer service levels
- Brand enhancement
- Morale
And you can measure it by reductions in:
- Absenteeism
- Turnover
Taken together, these improvements result in greater productivity and increased profitability for businesses.
Given the multitude of benefits, how successful are employers in nurturing employee engagement? Surprisingly, not very. With 32 percent of employees not fully engaged at work and another 16 percent actively disengaged, there’s a huge gap to manage. Additionally, 44 percent of workers worldwide report they are stressed. Engaged employees are less likely to be stressed and less likely to leave their jobs.
In our tight labor market, companies with highly engaged employees are able to carve out a significant competitive advantage in recruitment and retention.
Primary Aspects of the Leadership Role
There are three primary aspects to your role as a leader. They serve as the foundation for high employee engagement:
- Set vision, values, and tone. Clearly articulating the vision, values, and tone of your company gives employees their purpose and direction and reflects who you are as a leader. It also attracts people who fit into your workplace culture.
- Build trust. Trust is a two-way street. Many business leaders come from a traditional mindset that trust needs to be earned, and this serves as the building block for their workplace culture. As a result, these leaders treat employees as if they have something to prove. When you do not empower employees to make even the smallest decisions, for example, you’re saying you do not trust them. Your employees know this and feel it. Trust is built on both the words and actions of leaders.
- Communicate openly and often. The keys to effective communication are: always listen first; understand what an issue is truly about; be patient; agree to disagree; and be respectful. Many leaders are used to taking center stage and “telling” rather than seeking to connect. Effective communication skills can be learned and help you create conversations that give you better insight into your business while increasing employee engagement.
Common Engagement Challenges
It takes everyone in a company working together to create a supportive environment that engages employees. Leaders must take time to reflect on how their role fits into today’s dynamics of several generations in the workplace with various expectations and needs.
Key challenges that lead to reduced engagement include:
- Ineffective or outdated leadership styles
- Not articulating clear goals
- Gaps in communication
- Inadequate support through resources and tech tools
- Inflexibility in meeting personal needs and preferences
- Lack of opportunities for development or advancement
- Infrequent feedback
- Low priority for recognition and reward
Two Leadership Strategies for All Time
Blink and suddenly everything you thought you knew no longer applies. That’s our world today and probably tomorrow. Employee engagement is no exception. Every new generation forms its own expectations for life and work. That means leaders must keep themselves updated on changing engagement trends and strategies.
Every leader must think about how to ensure a positive work environment that begins with effective onboarding practices and builds employee loyalty by providing the things people care about. Today, those things would include work-life balance, wellbeing, and safety.
There are two employee engagement strategies I believe are timeless and that every leader should practice: putting people first and creating Camelot communities.
What does it mean to “Put Your People First”? People-centered leaders share a number of important attributes that support productive relationships and healthy cultures as well as business success. They connect deeply with their people by telling the truth, showing competence and accountability, building trust through empowerment, listening well, and encouraging innovation. These are the things that create a positive and inspiring employee experience which helps attract and retain the people you want in your company. They also build high levels of employee engagement.
How do you build Camelot? Camelot communities bloom into being in positive environments where people find dignity in the work they do. Work is no longer work, it is a calling, and people are fully engaged, driven, and passionate about what they do. The work is just as meaningful as the relationships people develop with leadership and coworkers.
Nurture this ideal by actively listening to your employees, at all levels. Check in with them daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. Use the feedback you get to make meaningful changes. Let your people know you heard and reacted to their feedback. This is an ongoing process. Bringing love, wellbeing, inclusivity, and shared purpose into the workplace takes all hands on deck—and people-centered leadership.
Summary
When employees are fully engaged and leaders adopt effective strategies, magic happens. Goals are met and exceeded. Crises are crushed. Innovation rules. People reach their potential. Companies thrive.
This is not simply about what we create for our employees. It’s about what they create for themselves and each other. High engagement is achievable when leaders create an environment that enables everyone to play a meaningful role.