Many business owners cite staff retention as one of the most important elements to making the company a success. Hanging on to the best people can be a difficult task, and with many other businesses looking for employees with certain skill-sets, you have to be impressing them as much as they impress you these days.

So what can you do help make your employees feel more engaged in their jobs?

1) Communicate as clearly as possible

Make sure that your employee knows exactly what is expected of them. Don’t be vague when describing their role, or when asking them to get on with a certain task. You also need to communicate to them things like the values and ethics of your business, so they know how to act whilst in the workplace, but also when out meeting clients or representing the company in any other way.

2) Get to know them personally

Many employees who dislike their jobs claim the reason lies with the boss. Usually this is because they think the management act like they are somehow ‘above’ them, or don’t seem to want to get to know them on any other level apart from the job that they are there to do. If you want your employees to feel valued and respected, you should try to get to know them personally and find out a bit about what they like outside of work. They are more likely to want to work for you if they feel like you are on friendly terms with each other.

3) Find out their career goals

Everyone has a goal in life and you need to find out what each and every one of your employees wants to achieve whilst at your company. Training is another important aspect of work life and ensuring that your staff get the opportunity to better themselves and further their careers could see you hanging on to the best people for much longer than if you aren’t helping them develop.

4) Offer rewards and incentives

Of course, the primary reason for working is to bring home the pay cheque each month. However, for many, work needs to be more challenging than this. One of the best ways to improve employee engagement is to incentivise them even further - try offering bonuses for exceptional performance, run things like ‘team of the month’ competitions where the best performing department wins a weekend away, or even just do things like free meals once a week or a company night out once a month.

5) Try to get feedback about your performance too

The employee-manager relationship is a two way process, and it may be that you are doing things that your staff are getting frustrated with. The key is openness and honesty - you will become more respected if once every so often you sit down with employees and ask for some feedback from them about what you could do better to help improve their working life.

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Interested in improving your employees workplace engagement? Cirrus Connect can help you with an employee engagement programme tailored to your business. Visit the website for more details.