Employee engagement for the win

Wait staff slacking on shift side work. 

A housekeeper with an “it’s not my job” attitude. 

The best sales associate in the store gave two-week’s notice. 

If you randomly sampled service-industry managers on what they experienced last week, these might be some of their responses. Turnover and burnout have long been problems for the industry, but these problems may be symptoms of something else. What’s affecting these businesses may actually be an employee engagement problem.

What the heck is employee engagement?

To define employee engagement, author Kevin Kruse likes to start with what it’s not. It’s not employee happiness. Workers who like the generous product discount, the chill break room and free hamburgers may be happy, but that doesn’t mean they’re motivated to work hard for the company. It’s also not employee satisfaction. Workers can be content and have no complaints about their jobs, but that doesn’t signal there’s a passion and drive to go the extra mile for their employer. Employee engagement is “the emotional commitment an employee has to an organization and its goals.” These are not the employees phoning it in. They’re the enthusiastic ones who care about their work and want to contribute to moving their company forward.

In a Gallup survey conducted late this summer, the percentage of engaged employees in the US was just 36%. The survey also pointed out that 13% of employees are actively disengaged. These are the resentful workers whose engagement needs aren’t being met. Their toxicity can sink team morale and undermine the positive work done by their engaged colleagues. Gallup classifies the remaining 51% of workers as not engaged. This group doesn’t have a connection to their work. They’re working, but not with passion.

Research has shown that engaged worker performance leads to better business outcomes. Productivity, customer satisfaction, sales and profitability all increase, while absenteeism, safety incidents, product defects and turnover decrease.

How to improve engagement

A worker pay raise isn’t the answer. More discipline won’t help. And genetic cloning isn’t ready for roll out. To improve engagement, managers need to take an active role. According to Gallup, “70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.” The foundation for meeting an employee’s engagement needs is built on continual communication. Here are a few strategies managers can adopt:

Set expectations: It’s important for employees to know what’s expected of them—by the manager, their teammates and the business. This shouldn’t be an exercise in just telling someone what to do. A manager should articulate what outstanding performance looks like and how great work can have an impact.

Be a coach, not a boss: Anyone can bark orders, but coaches can inspire. They believe in you and can get you to believe in yourself. Managers should constantly be having conversations with their workers—not to micromanage, but to see how they’re doing. These can be informal chats, rather than performance-related reviews. This creates opportunities to give on-the-spot feedback, answer questions, ask for input from the employee and keep an open dialogue. “Employees who receive daily feedback from their manager are 3x more likely to be engaged than those who receive feedback once a year or less.”

Get to know your employees: You can learn a lot when you take the time to know workers as individuals. What’s their life outside of work like? Married? Kids? Taking care of an elderly parent? Taking college courses? What do they like to do in their spare time? This information can help make a manager more empathetic and make employees feel more supported. Managers can also home in on a worker’s strengths and talents (maybe even ones the employee isn’t aware of) and figure out how they can be used to help the company.

Tie work to a greater purpose: The job isn’t just about the paycheck. Workers want meaningful work. Managers need to explain to employees how their roles and daily tasks contribute to goals and mission of the business, and how their actions reflect company values. Managers should make an effort to keep teams informed of what’s happening within the company beyond their immediate ecosystem. They need to feel that they’re part of the company, not just a cog in the machine.

Give recognition: Acknowledging good work provides a sense of accomplishment, builds confidence and helps a worker feel valued. Learn how each worker prefers to be recognized and then offer it frequently. It’s a great way to reinforce positive performance behaviors.

Encourage development: Most jobs can feel boring and unstimulating at times. Learning new things and growing personally keep things interesting, revives enthusiasm for work and helps maintain performance levels. Managers should create opportunities for workers to broaden their knowledge and stretch their skills. Consider challenging the worker to find better ways to do their current job, give them more responsibility or try them out in a new role that interests them. They should also encourage employees to set short-term and long-term goals and discuss how to go about achieving them. Development doesn’t have to mean a promotion though. Some workers may not be interested in moving up a level, but still want to be engaged.

Employee engagement is the secret sauce that so many businesses are craving. While its principles are pretty straightforward, it does require a big commitment from managers. That upfront commitment might mean fewer headaches and more wins in the future. Try it out and enjoy that victory lap around the workplace with your motivated team.