While some people assume that employees that show up every day are already engaged with their workplace, the truth is there’s a lot more to it than just physically being present. In fact, it’s about how they interact and work within the culture you’ve provided that helps to determine how engaged an employee truly is. One Global Sales Leader suggests that, “a passionate and engaged workforce maximizes company performance”- proving exactly why employers should take the necessary steps to truly engage their team members.
Recognizing a job well done isn’t about inflating egos or expensive bonuses for every single milestone. Instead, it’s the small ways employees are recognized- such as a company memo or giving the green light for new projects- that can show them that their hard work was noticed and appreciated.
Get the team out of the office and into some fun with team building events that help to promote communication, unity, trust and teamwork.
“The number one asset to any company is the people. They desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves and want to make a difference.” To his point, it’s vital that employees actually understand why they are doing the job in the first place- and the direction the company hopes to go. Being transparent in the vision of the company helps employees to truly get behind the mission, working harder every day to see it all come to fruition.
While “culture” has been a talking point for almost 50 years, it hasn’t been until the recent decade that CEO’s and companies have finally decided to fully tackle the obstacles standing in their way of truly healthy cultures- even going as far as creating specific roles and positions just to oversee the creation and maintenance of culture itself. “What would be truly interesting would be if you took total shareholder return from the top 500 companies and could somehow have a ‘culture meter’. I bet you would discover that the ones that were deeply rooted in their values would prove more successful than the ones only focused on the bottom line.”
Ditch the cubicles and opt for a space that is consistent with freethinking, teamwork and sharing ideas- you might be pleasantly surprised at the positive results immediately noticeable throughout the company.
Investing in the continued development of your employees is a no-brainer for true leaders. When companies fail to provide training or coaching for their employees’ professional growth it often leads to losing those employees to other companies. Especially in a Millennial workforce, employees aren’t looking to remain in the same positions for extended amounts of time, and instead are interested in growing either within a company or elsewhere that provides those opportunities.
Inviting and embracing employees to use innovative, out-of-the-box thinking will lead to both new concepts and perspectives that otherwise may never have been considered. While not all ideas will be successful, it’s the ability to generate these ideas―and the open space to share them―that allows the truly groundbreaking ideas to be discovered.
