Understanding our employee voice platform requires understanding what motivates engagement. Our research has identified 14 key drivers of employee engagement, each of which is essential for ensuring your employees feel heard.
Long before the term ’employee engagement’ first came into existence, businesses have sought ways to motivate their employees and make them more productive. Business leaders noticed that when employees felt satisfied at work, they were more likely to perform well—meaning it was better for the bottom line.
But in 1990, Boston University professor William Kahn, in his research on organizational psychology, coined the term that has become a cornerstone in how we understand human motivation at work.
Employee engagement is the emotional investment your employees have in their role, your organization, and its mission. It has become a key metric that helps organizations understand the health of their culture.
Employee engagement can be measured in different ways. Our methodology is based on one main engagement question, three engagement outcome questions, 14 questions measuring the ‘drivers’ of engagement, and 27 sub-driver questions. Based on decades of research, these drivers represent the key psychological requirements for human motivation at work, and include factors such as professional growth, working environment, and how meaningful we find our work.
Implementing effective initiatives that drive employee engagement is vital to the success of any business. When employees are engaged, they’re more likely to be productive, innovative and stay with their company. We created a list of ideas to create an inspiring and productive workplace that will help your employees thrive at work.
No two businesses are the same, meaning there is never a one-size-fits-all approach to nurturing employee engagement. From the 14 key drivers we list, some will no doubt be more prevalent than others.
Once you recognize which drivers are more specific to your team, you can begin to focus your employee engagement strategy. One simple but effective way to kickstart the process is by sending out a confidential survey, which encourages your team to provide honest feedback. This will pave the way for you to take action based on how your employees respond.
Managers are the critical link between your employees and your organization. This is why empowering them to take ownership of their teams’ engagement is critical.
Based on our 14 drivers of engagement, we’ve compiled a list of suggestions and initiatives to help boost employee engagement at your organization.
1. Celebrate Individual Accomplishments
Breeding a sense of individual accomplishment is integral to boosting morale. Even when a company performs well as a whole, it’s easy for some to feel like their work goes unnoticed, particularly in larger businesses. Create a sense of accomplishment by:
2. Encourage Employee Autonomy
Ultimately, no-one knows where and how a person is most productive, better than themselves. And as we found in our Employee Expectations 2021 Report, flexible working is a growing expectation among today’s workforce.
Showing that you trust your employees to be productive and set their own deadlines helps foster confidence—and could even lead to new, more efficient processes. To do this, organizations should:
3. Create an Environment That Enables Effective Collaboration
Where we work matters to us, and creating a positive and productive environment is about so much more than having a central office. As organizations consider hybrid or remote working cultures, finding ways to foster a working environment that helps employees work at their best will be critical.
4. Encourage Freedom of Opinions
Psychological safety is a critical part of developing a high-performing team. Simply put, it means that employees feel safe enough to ask questions, share ideas, and voice concerns when something isn’t right. When employees feel that they can express their opinion without fear of judgement or reprisals, this increases their engagement, leading to higher productivity and creativity.
Building psychological safety at your organization all starts with fostering a culture of mutual trust.
5. Set Clear and Fair Goals
It’s difficult to know where you’re going without having a destination in mind—and it’s the same at work. When employees have a good understanding of what they’re expected to achieve and can judge their own performance, this enables them to fully apply themselves and do their best work.
6. Offer Growth Opportunities
We know from our own data that employees are more likely to resign a role because they’re not feeling challenged. Personal and professional growth opportunities are the ultimate driving factors behind an employee’s desire to perform at a high level and thrive in a business.
Helping your employee define their strengths and weaknesses, and laying out a professional roadmap, will empower them to learn new skills and progress in your organization. However, organizations must remember that these goals will not be static, and as your employee grows at your organization, their goals and future aspirations will too.
As we look towards the future of work and the critical skills we need in business continue to shift, hybrid and all-remote workforces may face some challenges when it comes to fostering learning opportunities for growth. Organizations may need to invest in technology to facilitate this move to digital-first learning, as well as encouraging employees to take more ownership over their own growth journeys.
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