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Employee Engagement Ideas for 2022 By BRETT DANIEL
In the new year, it will be essential for organizations to ensure their team members feel a sense of purpose in their work. Don't miss these practical employee engagement ideas.
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mployee disengagement is a costly business problem — in more ways than one. Lost productivity, worsening mental health and morale issues are just a few items in a laundry list of workforce-critical problems that arise when employee engagement — the emotional precursor to extraordinary work — is ignored or neglected.
Disengaged employees cost companies between $450 and $550 billion annually, but there's also a devastating mental health cost. According to a Gallup study, actively disengaged employees are nearly twice as likely as engaged employees to report being diagnosed with anxiety and depression. And because disengaged employees are more likely to be absent from work, present employees must often take on any residual workloads, resulting in burnout and decreased morale. In 2022, employee engagement is predicted to become even more critical as employees seek a greater sense of purpose and connection at work. Considering the immense impact that engagement has on employee performance, HR and business leaders should start thinking about ways to improve it to stay ahead of this trend.
What is employee engagement, anyway? Employee engagement is the emotional state of mind that causes people to do their best work, sustainably. Engagement doesn't happen top-down; it occurs locally at the team level and starts with team leaders, who have the most immediate insight into what and how their teams are doing. According to the ADP Research Institute® (ADPRI), employee engagement: • Strongly depends on the engagement of the team leader. • Drives performance and retention. Highly engaged employees sell more and are more likely to stay with an organization. • Starts with trust. Employees who trust their team leader are 14 times more likely to be fully engaged.
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You can see why employee engagement is a crucial metric for leaders seeking to retain and get the most out of their people, two increasingly important goals amid the Great Resignation and remote work revolution. Leaders looking to step up their engagement game in 2022 will need to take an active interest in connecting, communicating and building trust with their teammates at the local level. Here are three practical employee engagement ideas leaders can use as part of their new or existing employee engagement strategy: 1. Start having frequent one-on-one check-ins. Frequently checking in with your people can help them feel more engaged at work quickly, and it has the added benefit of building trust. To make check-ins as systematic as possible, explore automated processes that allow employees to regularly complete a brief survey about how their week is going. Questions about what they like and dislike at work and whether they need help or additional resources to do their jobs effectively are most helpful. Then, you can set up a one-on-one meeting with them and use their responses to have a genuine, authentic conversation to better understand their experiences in your workplace. Check-ins should be real and straightforward. Avoid leading with negatives or any work that needs to be done. Instead, lead with experiential questions: 'How are you doing right now? What's going on in your world?' Begin to talk about their survey responses and gently segue into conversations about tasks, priorities and strategies that are or aren't working. This check-in is also an excellent time to give them praise, talk about any growth areas they're interested in, ask about any skills they want to learn or develop and remind them that, no matter what, you're there to help them succeed.
