Engaging employees is not just about socialising and participating in team events.
It is about:
• making individuals feel a part of the business,
• valued for the work they produce, and
• developing a good brand.
Get employee engagement wrong and you could face losing your most valuable asset, your employees.
Kirby Carabana for Employment Hero says ‘Want to keep your people happy and improve employee retention? Then, you should be focusing on giving them access to a broad range of benefits – thinking a little outside the box.’
There are a number of ways that you can impact engagement:
• Targeted health and wellbeing initiatives that support charities and promote health awareness
• Competitive salaries and payroll options including salary sacrifice and donations through payroll to charities
• Engaging employee benefits including flexible working arrangements, employee assistance programs, different types of leave (paid volunteer, purchased leave, sick leave bank)
• Structured reward and service award programs
Here are our favourite two ways to improve employee engagement that you should have in your toolkit:
Flexibility
Employee expectations for where, when and how they work are radically changing.
To enable your business to attract and retain the best employees you will need to be flexible in your approach to meeting the needs of the business and customers.
Flexibility can of course mean many things; including:
• working remotely,
• different start and finish times,
• temporary access to part time work to care for a family member or complete additional studies.
By offering flexible working arrangements, it allows employees to improve their work-life balance which reduces absenteeism.
Bring your dog to work day
More and more people are opting to have or start with furr babies and Friday 23 June marks International Bring Your Dog to Work Day. You may choose to not wait until the official day to introduce a pet-friendly policy in your office. Think about how allowing furry friends in the office may help improve morale and develop a good brand.
There’s a growing belief (probably originating at a hipster startup in Silicon Valley!) that pet-friendly workplaces improve the lives of employees. Apparently, workers who bring their dogs to work feel significantly less stressed than those who don’t. Kirby doesn’t know how many job candidates have ever asked about pet friendly policies, but having one is certainly a conversation piece, and creates something of an unusual drawcard for potential hires.
Whether you invite dogs into the workplace once a month, once a quarter, or once a year, it costs next to nothing – apart from a few packets of doggy treats!
To continue reading and see all five of Kirby’s suggestions to improve employee engagement, visit http://bit.ly/2CFBT2y
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About Kate Tongue
Kate Tongue is the founding Director of Small Business Society.
She is a qualified and experienced Human Resources professional with more than 10 years of experience across the private and public sectors.
Her particular interest and experience is in managing the employee life cycle, delivering process improvements, and Human Resource strategy.
Looking for more information on the various stages of the employee life cycle or Human Resources in general? The following may interest you.
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