Engaged employees are more dynamic, more customer-oriented and more devoted to company’s success and organizations with high levels of employee engagement are more successful. Employee engagement is one priority always on top-of-mind of HR industry experts. Considering the present situation retention is equally as important as recruitment. Organizations are focusing on different methods to better engage workers who might otherwise go elsewhere seeking what they perceive to be “greener grass.”

As an employer, you need to find unique and innovative ways to improve employee engagement in the workplace. Along with the traditional benefits like loan assistance, health insurance, there are lot of new perks which can be added to your current employee engagement plan like gym memberships, standing desks, nap rooms and team building activities. These methods can be tailored according to the needs and motivations of each individual organization and employee.

Companies can invest in workplace wellness programs to combat the daily stress and decreased employee productivity. And in return reap the benefits of increased creativity and low employee turnover. Following are few innovative ideas to consider adding to your employee engagement strategy to truly make a difference in the lives of your employees.

Make room for flexibility

One of the secrets to increase employee engagement in the workplace is by giving flexibility to your employees. This would give them the freedom to adjust their work schedules to starting the day earlier or later or location to suiting their needs. You can also continue working from home one or two days a week even after the current pandemic situation is over. Millennial’s being the largest generation in the workforce always seek for flexibility and implementing these would definitely make them happy and comfortable and eventually more productive.

Try to be authentic

A sincere relationship between employees and the management is based on genuine attempts from both ends and it motivates building teamwork and trust. Employers should try to create a workplace environment that is unique, comfortable. Do not falsify your relationship with employees and develop a trusting work environment. This helps employees realize that their workplace is an open forum to keep their thoughts with no sugar-coating. This would motivate them to be honest and not to hide things from their managers. Creating such workplace environment will make people feel valued, heard and improve sense of comradeship.

Add benefits that satisfy employee lifestyle needs

As employees enter different life stages their lifestyle needs also changes. For example, young families would love paid parental leave programs, recent pass out graduates would prefer education loan assistance. Encourage your employees to maintain a lifestyle balance between work and their personal life.

Take a comprehensive approach to wellness

Earlier employee wellness used to mean arranging an internal health fair. But now companies are widening their approach to address the overall aspect of wellness including physical, mental, emotional, social, occupational, financial, purposeful and environmental wellness. Encourage your employees to take a short break from their desk at regular intervals and stretch. You can utilize few applications that can be easily installed in your computers to remind yourself to take breaks and set your eyes off the system. These don’t have to be equally proportionate, but happy, healthy employees are generally engaged employees, so address their wellness needs fitting your organization and employees the best. When employees see that you care for their well-being, they tend to work harder towards achieving the company goals.

Encourage collaboration and Show gratitude

Collaboration is one of the key aspects for any business to focus on improving. Collaboration while working on projects develops better ideas and even improve employee engagement by encouraging teamwork and learning from colleagues and peers. Successful organizations make clever use of employee collaboration to reduce company costs and improve efficiency among the team.

One important aspect to increase employee engagement is by simply saying ‘Thank You’ to your employees. Appreciate all their hard work and efforts they have put into in making your organization more successful.

Finally

The biggest secret to increase employee engagement at workplace is that there is no secret. Great leaders pay close attention to what their employees have to say and then act on the feedback. Focus on creating a work culture that promotes continuous development and help employees to build the skills required to fulfill their job responsibilities. Follow the above discussed tips and you will be surprised by the results.