Making improvements in your employee experience will help to reduce turnover, increase productivity, and simply make your company a better place to work. The responsibility to create a positive employee experience falls on the shoulders of your leadership team. Supervisors and managers need to make employee engagement a top priority in order to see any improvement. Here are a few suggestions for managers from a recent article in Forbes.
Help Employees Find Purpose
There are two strategies here. First, find ways for employees to find personal fulfillment. Learn about what motivates them (during one on one meetings is a great time for this) and then find ways to tie their work to this. Second, help employees understand the greater purpose of the organization and how their individual efforts contribute to it.
Provide the Right Amount of Structure
Employees want to know what is expected of them. They want a clear idea of what it takes to be successful and what standard they will be held to. But they do not want to be micromanaged. Employees want to know the rules of the game and then they want the freedom to play it their way.
Build Up Your Team
This doesn’t mean you need to add cheesy team-building activities (trust falls anyone?) to your department meetings. Instead, create space for people to get to know one another. Provide opportunities for shared learning and collaboration. Recognize their hard work and encourage peers to provide each other with positive and constructive feedback.
Share these ideas with your leadership team as you plan for the next year.