subject: How to Keep Your Employees Engaged [print this page] How to Keep Your Employees Engaged How to Keep Your Employees Engaged
They know that when employees are disengaged with their work mistakes are made and productivity falls. They also know that the contribution of highly engaged employees is consistently high.
What about the implications of engagement and change? When employees dig in their heels and resist change initiatives you can bet that engagement is low. Highly engaged employees are more likely to be ready for change, and to embrace it when it inevitably arrives at their doorstep.
Keeping employees engaged is quite easy, but it gets trickier as your company grows in size. The more people the trickier it gets. Some managers may not understand the dynamics of engagement, or consider the consequences. But it can be achieved.
The consequences of disengagement are very apparent. Check this for yourself. When you are not fully engaged in the work you are doing you:
Get distracted easily and more often
Feel low in energy and motivation
Make more mistakes especially with the details
Find your own distractions that keep you from completing the task in hand - making coffee, tidying your desk, emailing, chatting etc.
Leave things until the last minute so you find you have not prepared as thoroughly as you might have done - and now it's too late.
When you extrapolate these consequences across teams you get an idea of the degree of lost potential for productivity gains, accuracy of details, and of course drop in creativity and willingness to go the extra mile when needed.
What causes you to become disengaged?
No interest in the topic or activity
Forcing employees to do jobs that do not play to their strengths is a quick way to disengage.
Strong beliefs to the contrary of what you are hearing
Insufficient opportunities to involve employees in decision-making keep an 'us and them' culture alive and suspicion arises when new changes are instigated.
You are pre-occupied in thought with something else
If you do not provide enough direction, and goals are not clearly stated, minds will wander. When the road ahead is fuzzy the mind will find something more concrete to fix upon.
You have tried to engage but feel you are not being listened to or taken seriously
Employee engagement schemes and surveys need to be conducted with absolute sincerity and integrity. If a cry for help or a voice for difference is not listened to and responded to positively, then minds will decide that there is little truth in what is communicated and suspicion will arise.
