Employees know that respect and loyalty goes both ways: if you treat your staff well, they will repay you with dedication and positive results many times over, says Danny Brooks
Workers who are unhappy, stressed or anxious because of a mental illness will be demotivated at work, find it difficult to concentrate on complex tasks and will be less inclined to collaborate with colleagues.
- Productivity – physical and mental illness is responsible for British firms losing £77 billion through 15.4 million working days lost every year
- Recruitment – employees who think of their employers as a great place to work are much more likely to make recommendations and referrals to others in their network, helping HR departments to recruit top talent and reduce recruitment costs
- Retention – the average cost of replacing one employee who leaves the business costs £30,000
Here are five ways that any business leader can engage employees to enhance productivity, increase retention and drive business growth.
The five facets of an effective employee engagement programme
1 Communication
Communication is the easiest way to maintain connections between teams and across departments. Company-wide communications like regular update meetings, monthly newsletters and Intranet systems can update the workforce on company progress and planned initiatives and allow workers an otherwise-rare chance to ask questions of their senior leadership teams. Fun activities like team-building outings help build and maintain strong interpersonal relationships, as well as reward employees for their hard work. Strategy days elicit creativity and ideas from staff and involve individuals and teams in the future of the company.
Weekly 1-2-1 meetings provide a dedicated time for employees to connect with their manager face-to-face and get vital support with challenges, as well as keeping track of professional development.
2 Inclusivity
Diverse businesses aren’t just more attractive to diverse potential talent pools; they also perform better financially. Diverse companies are 70% more likely than their competitors to capture new markets, and a recent McKinsey report evidences that gender-diverse companies are 15% more successful than their competitors, with ethnic-diverse companies outperforming their competitors by a phenomenal 35%. Businesses that are inclusive of all their staff are better at understanding and serving their customer base, and both employees and consumers reward inclusive businesses with their loyalty.
Organisations can provide a welcoming and respectful environment for all employees by making a conscious effort to improve recruitment and communication across the company. Find out how the diverse employees in your company really feel, and what they want and need from their employer, and involve diverse employees at all levels in the development of the business. Run a mentoring programme that matches female, ethnic minority, LGBT and disabled employees to diverse mentors who can provide first-hand support and beneficial career advice. Most importantly, regularly ask for and listen to the feedback of employees across backgrounds, ages, departments and levels of seniority, and use it to continually improve your ways of working.
3 Learning and development
One in three people would leave a job they enjoyed if it did not help them progress in their career. Learning & Development is vital to employee retention. The best way to make sure employees are continually challenged and upskilled is to create a Personal Development Plan for each individual. Created in partnership with the employee, this document uses the employee’s career goals and the immediate business needs to outline SMART objectives for the next 6-12 months. A PDP involves workers in their own professional success and continually adds new skills to the business.
Upskilling employees doesn’t have to mean sponsoring MBAs or paying high costs for external training programmes. Training and development can be very cost-effective, particularly for small businesses. Skills that are free or very low-cost include:
- Coding and website development
- Project management
- Social media
- SEO
- Design through Adobe Suite
- Programmes such as Microsoft Office
Mentoring by more senior employees can provide free in-house coaching and support for those at the earlier stages of their career. Soft skills such as communication, negotiation, leadership and adaptability are often most effectively passed on through peer and traditional face-to-face mentoring.
4 Benefits
Different demographics and personality types want different things
flexible working hours and remote working schedules allow individuals much-needed work-life balance, and
Employee benefits are often seen as a nice-to-have that larger employers can offer to differentiate from competitors. However, benefits are vital to recognising, rewarding and connecting with your teams. Directors and Managers don’t necessarily need to invest significant resources into these programmes straight away, but can scale as the workforce increases and the organisation grows.
Free benefits can have a significant impact on work-life balance, such as:
- Casual dress codes – a more comfortable and relaxed work environment at no further cost
- Early finishes – a better commute one a week
- Buy and sell holiday – flexible schedules to simultaneously suit those who want to travel and those who prefer to save
- CSR days – give back to the community by swapping work for charity one day a year.
Low-cost engagement initiatives could include:
- Fresh fruit deliveries – enjoyable and helping to keep staff healthy
- Meals out – team or company lunches can improve communication and help employees solve problems together on a well-deserved break from the office
- Social events – the cost of snacks, drinks and entertainment will be far outweighed by enhanced loyalty, collaboration and employee satisfaction
- Cinema tickets – show your teams you value them as people as well as their output
- Cycle to work schemes – incentivising healthy behaviour and helping staff to cut commuting costs, this initiative can be heavily subsidised by the Government.
Innovative perks for bigger companies could involve:
- Mental health days – additional days of annual leave for personal use to reduce stress
- Wellness programme – not just limited to gym memberships but also covering health insurance and associated benefits like massage therapy, alongside regular health check programmes
- Exercise classes – yoga, dance and sport as well as less traditional activities like rock-climbing
- Paid qualification scheme – paying costs for University degrees and vocational training courses to help upskill employees and providing study leave
- Subscriptions – monthly or annual memberships providing access to discounts, film or music streaming services, activities or small gifts.
5 Reward
Rewards are no longer limited to bonuses. Companies can reward performance, commitment and longevity with staggered rewards schemes:
- Competitions – prizes for those who hit their targets or over-achieve on difficult objectives, with rewards including a holiday abroad for large annual contests or gift vouchers for smaller competitions
- Experiences – day trips or activities to boost wellbeing and teambuilding, or even just provide entertainment, such as skydiving, escape rooms, tourist expeditions or boat trips
- Loyalty – celebrating work anniversaries and career milestones by offering extra holiday, benefits or privileges for each year worked or milestone achieved.
Employees know that respect and loyalty goes both ways: if you treat your staff well, they will repay you with dedication and positive results many times over. Rewards motivate staff to work hard, inspire them to innovate and help to retain them when they receive other offers of employment (as all excellent employees inevitably will).
Through implementing an employee engagement strategy, at VHR we have improved our retention: more than half our 90 employees have been with our business for at least three years. We expanded our workforce by 50% in three years – from 60 to 90 employees – and doubled our revenue from £18 million to £36 million in the same time period. We are living proof that happy, respected and rewarded employees drive business success.
Danny Brooks is the Founder and CEO of global technical recruitment consultancy VHR and was named the IoD’s Global Director of the Year 2018.
