Commitment, loyalty, and connection to the company. These three concepts joined together to form the concept of employee engagement. Keeping your employees engaged and satisfied is the key to high productivity and a stellar retention rate. People who are engaged with workplace culture and the success of your business tend to stick around and do a great job while they’re with you. 

The issue is actually keeping engagement high. Engagement isn’t as easy to track as sales or diversity metrics — it’s an underlying feeling that impacts every aspect of work. There are a few places to start when attempting to gauge engagement and many ways to create an employee engagement action plan. Today we’ll be going over just a few methods to help keep your workers engaged and proactive.

Conduct an Anonymous Survey

Whether you think your company is suffering due to a lack of engagement, or you’re simply preparing to begin an engagement-boosting effort — start with a survey. Attempting to up worker engagement without being aware of why they’re not engaged is a recipe for disaster. Engagement surveys are fantastic tools to understand current engagement levels, and why they are the way they are. 

When composing an engagement survey, ask questions that could be asked at any point in time, and could be reused year to year. Keep language neutral and don’t lead employees to certain answers. The survey shouldn’t be overly long, as interest will wane and answers will become less neutral. 

Don’t Shy Away From Potential Solutions

While it seems counterintuitive, management often shies away from the idea of pay increases as an engagement practice. If your company is offering a truly competitive salary, a pay increase is less likely to appear as a leading cause of lackluster engagement. If it does, reevaluating salaries for certain departments may solve your issue altogether. Remember, money is a primary motivator when it comes to working.

Develop Engagement Positive Practices

For leadership and HR employees, practices that further employee engagement need to be included in your engagement action plan. Here are some guidelines for potential practices to implement before, during, and following an employee engagement effort:

HR Engagement Practices

There are a number of goals that HR employees should strive for in order to positively impact employee engagement:

• Focus on Satisfaction: Create an environment where employees feel safe and respected. Make going above and beyond a rewarding experience, not a punishing expectation
• Carefully Select New Hires: Don’t panic fill positions unless absolutely necessary. Take time to find the right fit for the team, so as to not disrupt the work environment.
• Invest In Success: Implement rewards programs that give back to employees who work hard, or give successful recommendations. Make sure onboarding programs and training are given increased attention. A poor onboarding experience is the cause of plenty of early voluntary terminations. 

Make Use of Chatbots/AI Tools

If you plan on improving your engagement with existing and future employees, consider investing in AI software. Chatbots are advanced programs that can carry out conversations. They can dispense information, provide company policy, and much more. Our latest innovation, pandoSELECT, can allow for more personalized and efficient communications early in the hiring process. 

PandoLogic’s toolbox of AI-powered software can provide you with an unparalleled level of engagement — both before and after recruitment. Our revolutionary tech is constantly evolving, yet staying affordable and flexible.