In recent years, company leaders have faced a wave of challenges that have threatened the survival of their businesses. With the rise in remote working, economic uncertainty and increasing employee expectations, leaders face a more disengaged and challenging workplace than ever before. Coupled with growing employee turnover, not only does this cost time and money in lost productivity, it’s a significant financial burden to rehire new staff. Therefore, it’s clear to see that attracting and retaining high performers is top of the agenda for modern day leaders.
Research shows that companies with a high level of employee engagement are 23% more profitable than those with staff that are less engaged. As a result, leaders cherish an environment where employees take initiative and actively contribute to the company’s growth. So, what does a high engagement culture look like and how can you build it into the foundations of your workplace?
What High Engagement Culture Looks Like
Employees want more than a pay slip. They want to feel valued, listened to and that they are constantly working towards something meaningful, not just a cog in a machine. When employees are genuinely engaged and actively collaborating to achieve a shared vision, you have high engaged team.
A common by-product of high engagement is high performance and a key trait of this is a continuous curiosity to learn. When your team are hungry to learn, develop and improve, it’s a sign they want to grow internally in themselves, and externally with the company. In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, a company’s ability to continuously learn and innovate is crucial for long-term success.
Embedded and lived company values are a great indicator for high engagement, does your company have core values that are embodied by their employees? Shared values often align with contributing to a shared company vision.
5 Steps To Building A High-Engagement Culture
Define and Communicate Core Values
Give Employees a Sense of Purpose and Community
Set Clear Goals and Measure Performance
Invest in Growth and Development Opportunities
Recognise and Reward Excellence
1. Define and Communicate Core Values
Company values are the fundamental beliefs and ideals that shape a company’s culture and guide its decision-making processes. To effectively serve their purpose, these values should be articulated as verbs, which emphasize action and behavior, rather than just nouns or adjectives. For instance, instead of using static terms like “integrity” or “innovation,” a company might choose action-oriented phrases such as “act with integrity” or “innovate continuously.” This approach not only encourages employees to embody these values through their actions but also reinforces the intended behavioral expectations within the culture. Values in the early stages of a company are often defined by the values of the founder(s). As a company progresses through growth it often becomes defined by other people and evolve to match the needs of the business
From your set of values, determine how they will be implemented. A simple strategy is to create ten guiding principles that can be actioned day to day. Company principles, unlike value statements, are the fundamental rules or guidelines that dictate how a company operates and conducts business, often focusing on ethical standards and operational practices. Principles are a set of behaviors stemming from your values that provide a clear and actionable framework for employees to relate to and follow.
Once established, enable your leadership teams to frequently promote and demonstrate these. This requires focused alignment across the leadership team to ensure a consistent message. For instance, when positivity and ambition are effectively broadcast from the top, it often cascades throughout the company boosting morale and productivity.
Whilst it’s important to reiterate your principles, you should be transparent with employees, emphasising that no one can constantly achieve perfection and the goal is to consistently strive to uphold these principles the majority of the time. Guiding principles can also serve a vital role in decision-making, particularly at the leadership level. For instance, if you’re considering a partnership with another company, do both sets of values align?
2. Give Employees a Sense of Purpose and Community
Whilst there are many factors that contribute to employee satisfaction and fulfilment, having a sense of purpose is usually top among them. When employees feel that their work is meaningful, they are more likely to experience greater engagement, reduced stress, and enhanced resilience, all of which are key to a high engagement workplace.
One effective way to give people a sense of purpose is to establish an employee forum in which representatives from each department are elected to propose changes and share ideas. Not only does this give employees a space to voice their opinions, it also provides a strong sense of autonomy ultimately resulting in better wellbeing and engagement. To ensure an accurate representation at the forums, don’t restrict this to senior members and consider rotating who attends each time. When structured correctly, these are an effective way to bolster a sense of community, social connection and increased engagement.
Social connection in the workplace blatantly took a hit during the pandemic. The isolation of working from home has arguably ruptured the sense of community. Seemingly insignificant office interactions have been reduced to digital exchanges which can leave many employees feeling disconnected. To solve this, companies have paid for coffee meetups for remote employees, whilst others have organised team building activities to encourage in person participation. Whatever it may be, there’s no one size fits all so be sure to include all interests. For business success in the modern world, it’s crucial to keep remote staff front of mind.
3. Set Clear Goals and Measure Performance
Much like a purpose, most people excel when clear goals and expectations set. It may be beneficial to break away from rigid, annual reviews which in some cases, can hinder development and demotivate staff. Integrate frequent, specific feedback sessions which can foster teamwork and drive high engagement. Ensure that each role has set specific and measurable achievements, for instance SMART targets. Once these have been set, incorporate them into a 30/60/90 day plan so that each employee knows what to achieve in the short, medium and long term.
4. Invest in Growth and Development Opportunities
It’s one thing for a company to promote excellent learning and development processes but it’s another to have these in place. Does your staff have a specific place they can go to advance their professional development? Naturally, the tone is set from the moment new starters join, so having a comprehensive and inclusive induction process is a perfect place to begin. Job satisfaction rises when employees are confident in their ability to do their job well and when an employee is thoroughly trained in their role, they will be more likely to stay with a company longer. Employees will often start looking elsewhere if they feel progression is out of reach.
Some simple ideas to empower employees that won’t exceed the training budget include, coaching, mentoring and job shadowing. If feedback sessions are a regular occurrence, use the time spent on annual reviews to proactively map out a clear career path for each employee to encourage high engagement.
5. Recognise and Reward Excellence
Imagine the model employee, who embodies company values, invests in their own development and adds to the sense of community in the workplace. You may acknowledge this but how do they know they’re excelling? It’s vital that hard work and dedication is recognised so that employees can continue to perform at this level.
Establishing an employee recognition programme can be an effective way to sustain this. Firstly, set your objectives and align these with your guiding principles to reinforce ideal company behaviours. Programme rewards could include either praise and recognition or token and monetary rewards. Combining the two is proven most effective when increasing employee engagement. For example, if you received a bonus with no explanation, you wouldn’t know how to replicate the behaviours that led to it. A recognition programme provides a framework for employees to replicate great work as well as promoting the desired company values and principles.
High Engagement Culture for Long-Term Success
The importance of a high engagement workplace cannot be overstated. Successfully ingraining purpose, progress and belonging into the everyday fabric of the workplace, will likely lead to improved employee wellbeing, increased productivity and ultimately business success.
When leaders put the time and effort in, they reap the rewards of a high engagement workplace and as such, should be at the top of every company’s agenda. Making the decision to improve company culture propels you along the path to sustained business success.
