Gone are the days when simply hiring more people is the solution to growth. Businesses need to find ways to do more with less and invest wisely.
Now, more than ever, your people have to be your top priority: By staying lean and creating a great work environment you can improve employee engagement in order to achieve your business goals!
Employee Disengagement
We are living in a world where all of us are experiencing seismic changes: From a global pandemic that transformed the way we work over night to very uncertain economic times ahead that make us worry about the future.
Within this context, it is not surprising that stress and anxiety are felt by most of us on a daily basis. Research and consulting firm Gallup has analysed the state of the global workplace and found extremely concerning evidence that the relationship between workplace and people is indeed broken.
With only 21% of employees engaged at work and 33% of employees thriving in their overall wellbeing, most would say that they don't find their work meaningful, don't think their lives are going well or don't feel hopeful about their future.
The global figure of only 21% of employees being engaged is scary and it means that there is a huge mountain to climb for most companies. And it doesn't look any better when we zoom into the UK for more detail - in fact, figures are considerably worse with only 9% of employees surveyed feeling engaged at work!
Disengagement Causes
So what is happening here that leaves people behind? Gallup found five key drivers for burnout that in turn lead to disengagement:
Unfair treatment at work
Unmanageable workload
Unclear communication from managers
Lack of manager support
Unreasonable time pressure
Lack of management and leadership skills in companies are creating an environment where people loose trust and motivation to show up at work.
Recognising the Signs
There are some clear signs of team disengagement that shouldn't be ignored. For example when people aren't working well together, when they don't deliver against business goals or when key people are starting to leave, then leaders must take notice and explore what's going on!
These signs are the symptoms of deeper issues that need to be uncovered. To back them up and gain a better understanding, it is worth running an engagement survey, for example based on the Gallup Q12. The results of such a survey can be a key component in starting a conversation with teams and should lead to the identification of shared improvement goals.
Improving Low Engagement
Identifying low engagement levels is an important first step. What has to follow is an acknowledgement of the issue and a commitment to tackle particular areas for improvement.
Before implementing any changes to improve engagement, it's crucial to re-connect with employees first. Basic trust levels and safe spaces need to be re-established to create the foundation for any improvements. This is a crucial step and requires leaders and managers to take responsibility for the role they play in creating the work environment.
Leaders and managers need to be brave and own their role in shaping the work environment.
Once teams are prepared to discuss a way forward, the real work starts: engagement by definition means that all your people need to be involved in the process. Seeing and hearing them, taking their perspective, will create insights that are crucial to shaping the journey towards a healthier team environment.
Creating Clarity with Empathy
There are many dimensions that are critical to engaging employees and all of them link back to creating an environment which has clarity and empathy.
Clarity connects with our brains - it creates the context that we need to operate efficiently and understand our part in delivering success.
Empathy connects with our hearts - it makes us feel safe, allows us to be brave and gives us a sense of belonging. Without empathy as a foundation, clarity will not find fertile ground.
When combining clarity with empathy, we can truly connect with employees and take them on a growth journey both for our business and for them personally.
Invest in Your Teams
Learning new leadership and management skills is critical for improving engagement as highlighted earlier by Gallup's research. When applied, these new skills create clarity across teams in relation to business goals and how each team member can safely contribute to them.
When empathy is leveraged, better ways of working and valuable feedback mechanisms emerge which lead to continuous learning and growth for everyone.
Great managers help colleagues learn and grow, recognize their colleagues for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about. In environments like this, workers thrive.
Increasing engagement levels requires strategic investment in your people, both on a personal and professional level. It's an investment that will pay off in the medium and long term as it enables your business to increase overall performance and as a result become more competitive.
Get Support
Please reach out to us for support! We can help you on your journey to improve team engagement.
We have a proven process covering all clarity and empathy dimensions and work with you to identify and improve areas with the biggest need to create the biggest positive impact for your teams.
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