Role of HR Professionals on Improving Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is an essential aspect of a company’s growth, success, productivity, etc., employee engagement is so important, it helps employees get motivated, more loyal, hardworking, passionate, and the urge to want to give positivity back to the company by showing their productivity in the work they do.

Employee engagement is also referred to as the dedication, love, and care that the employer or HR shows towards their employees in order to connect positively and create a fun and chaotic environment.

Importance of employee engagement

Right from the first day of an employee’s work till the end, the HRs play a vital role in engaging with employees or employee engagement.

Employee engagement in HR is as important as expecting your employees’ contribution to the company’s growth and success. Employee engagement helps in a lot of ways, such as:

• Retainment of talented employees
• Productivity, loyalty, and positive contribution of employees to the company
• Decreased employee turnovers
• Employee satisfaction
• Increased Performance and production of the Company

Engaging with employees also shows the culture that your company has been following. The way you speak, dress up, welcome them and show your pleasure in meeting them is what sets a significant impact and impression on the employee or person.

How HR professionals can improve employee engagement in an organisation

According to the famous magazine Forbes, engaged employees are more likely to be motivated and remain committed to their work than disengaged employees. It helps both the employees and the company for the betterment of the environment and the development of the organisation, like a win-win situation for both.

Employee engagement helps and influences greatly on motivating the employee, and also affects their behavior towards their work and their communication skills.

• It makes them more loyal to their work and to what they contribute to the company.
• It makes them think that contributing greatly to the company is their utmost priority.

There are various strategies that HR can use or uses for improving overall growth, success, and employee engagement for the company’s profitability.

1. Positive communication

The first thing an employee notices and expects from the employer/HR is good communication. The way of communicating, how you communicate or your communication skills show a lot about you, your character, and your personality.

An employee always expects an employer with good communication skills, someone who would motivate and inspire them to work hard, strive, and be a part of or contribute to the company’s growth and well-being and also someone who understands their problem and gives them solutions in order to work with a peace of mind.

Working with the stress and pressure of personal problems can be distracting and may also lead to serious health issues. Having proper communication and giving them solutions in order to cope can be very inspiring to them.
HRs should communicate in such a way that it does not burden the employees but helps them be at ease as they put in as much effort as they can.

2. Regular feedback or surveys

Requesting feedback or surveys from the employees regarding the work environment and the newly implemented strategies should be an essential part of the company’s monthly or weekly routine.

Honest Feedback helps a lot in improving or making changes in the strategies in order to avoid making mistakes in the process of engaging with the employees. Because disengagement can lead to a drastically low company reputation.

It also helps the employees put in their ideas and thoughts and be creative about how they want their working environment to be. It also impacts the company culture. Having a good company culture attracts many, and inviting feedback from the employees is one step closer to having a good company culture

3. One-on-one talks

Having one-on-one talks with employees helps HRs to know more about the employee and also helps you know the problems they might be facing. A good HR always tries to know more about their employees and helps them resolve any company or work-related problems.

These one on one sessions helps the employees to have a better working environment. And also to have stress-free work. It helps them get closer to the employer and to build a great business relationship.

4. Recognition of talents and hard work

Recognizing employees for their hard work, contribution to the company, and talent is very important and essential. Recognition helps greatly in motivating the employees in keeping up the good work and also inspires them to be more than just contributing to the company’s betterment.

Employers should recognize the work and talent of their employees by conducting “employee of the month” surveys, etc… and by providing them with gifts or paid vacation or days off, a small celebration, etc.

5. Proper training for development

One of the major roles that an HR plays is the training that he/she gives in order to increase or improve the developmental skills of the employee. Employers need to give proper and necessary training and keep an eye on the employees while they train.

6. Provide the necessary tools

To give proper and informative training, the employer should provide the employees with the necessary tools in order to help them do or perform their roles properly.

For example:

• Charts and ppts help in understanding the concept well
• Video analytics, etc.

7. Introduce a new strategy when one doesn’t work

Sometimes you may have implemented a strategy, which may have not been put forward in the right manner or it didn’t work. In situations like that, employers have to change the strategy or approach to a different one in order to make it work.

Every strategy that you try to implement might not work due to the different mentality and personalities of employees, and also due to how your company works. So, when one strategy doesn’t work, you need to come up with a plan B in order to engage with your employees.

8. To try and execute better communication with disengaged employees

Having disengaged employees can be very hard to manage. It may be one of the top reasons for a company’s low productivity or decrease in profitability.

Having such employees could denote a decreased level of engagement with your employees. More than the engaged employees, disengaged employees are the ones to be taken utmost care of.

The word “disengage” in itself says that the employer/HR isn’t engaged with that employee, so he/she needs proper engagement in order for smooth productivity in the company.
Here are some tips to engage with such employees:

Proper individual communication. They are also known as one-on-one communication.
Recognizing them for their effort. Even if it is just the smallest contribution. Because it helps them get motivated and inspired to keep up that work or to get better at their work

9. To create/provide a safe environment for the employees

Providing a safe environment is also a key factor in employee engagement and productivity. Each team requires its own workstations in order to be more productive. The paint used on the walls, the theme, etc… also helps to boost the employee’s mood.

Each color could reflect a different mood. Choosing the right theme and colors and contributing to your employee’s state while they work is also a great contribution to the company’s profitability. For instance,

The color green seems to impact the positive emotions in an individual
And the color red impacts in the opposite way, i.e, it influences negative emotions.
Warm colors impact emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility.

10. To emphasise a good company culture

Every company follows its own culture, which makes it unique and stand out from other companies. So following a good company culture not only attracts your own employees but also helps you get new business connections. So maintaining or emphasising good company culture is a vital part of a company.

Your company culture could stand out from other companies. It could be anything starting from how you welcome new employees, to engaging with employees, communication skills, etc.

Conclusion

Every employee will have their own expectations of their workplace on how they want it to be, etc.

We may not be able to fulfill all their expectations, but we also have the power to give them a better environment than they expect.

So thinking wisely and implementing the right strategies are very important. The above strategies are common strategies used by various companies and have worked for many.

But it may or may not work for every company as each company has its own unique way of working.

When one strategy doesn’t work, you might have to think out of the box and come up with new strategies to engage with your employees, because, at the end of the day, it is the employees who play an important role in the company’s growth. So investing your time and thoughts is very important.