8 Tips to Engaging IT-Employees

Career AdviceWorking Life

This is how these 8 leaders motivate their employees

Employee engagement is a difficult thing to master, as every workplace is different. A variety of factors influence team engagement, which makes it difficult to motivate employees from a managerial or executive perspective.

Only 20% of employees feel engaged at work, according to a Gallup report.

However, there are ways to keep employees motivated and engaged in the workplace. We can learn a lot from the successes of other noteworthy organizations. For example, eight leaders from across the country with various backgrounds engage employees in the workplace in different ways.

Engaging employees:

Remember that your team is composed of unique individuals who may respond better to certain employee engagement ideas than others.

Keeping employees engaged and motivated necessitates routine conversation. It is important to find out how your team members want to receive feedback, what type of recognition they prefer, what they value most about the office environment and what their passions are. By doing this, you can develop an employee engagement strategy that meets the needs of your team.

Ways to engage employees

Creating an inviting surrounding for all workers

Include employees in market growth, setbacks as well as strategy development. That way they know their work is meaningful and has impact

Hosting events for employee relationships

Give workers leadership roles

Keep tabs on employee engagement by implementing a survey, especially as you expand your business to new markets and onboard new team members. If you notice a decrease in productivity, it may be necessary to re-evaluate your current strategy.

What are the characteristics of employee engagement?

Employee engagement refers to the degree of passion and investment that employees have in their work and the company. Workforce engagement is closely related to job satisfaction, but the two are not always directly correlated — employees can be satisfied in their job without being engaged.

Highly engaged individuals not only want to excel in their roles, but they also want to help the company achieve its goals. These employees believe that their work positively contributes to their team’s and the organization’s success. Employee engagement is a complex idea that describes the emotional connection employees have to their job.

Engaged employees are more productive

Why is it important to have engaged employees? And why should you care? Companies with engaged employees have proven to be more effective, efficient, productive and profitable. They also are more likely to keep their top talents. This statistic underlines the importance of engagement in the workplace even further:

A whopping $8.1 trillion dollars in lost productivity every year is caused by actively disengaged employees, as the Gallup report suggests.

Employees who are disengaged care less about being at work and will undermine the success of your company.

By understanding the benefits of a highly engaged workforce, you can work to engage your employees more effectively with these 8 tips below.

Prioritize Diversity and Inclusion

By investing in your team members, you are prioritizing employee engagement which will have a positive impact on retention and attendance.

It is crucial to have a company culture that welcomes all individuals in order to engage your employees. By celebrating diversity and making inclusivity a central part of your office environment, you send a very supportive message to your employees -- leadership values individuality and wants employees to flourish, both as people and professionals.

The leaders of StratEx understand the importance of creating an inclusive team, which they’ve achieved by launching the employee engagement group “StratEx Spectrum.”

"Since the establishment of this group, Spectrum has sponsored several creative and educational events that have brought our company together in a new way to help us better understand and support the people we work with every day," said Gretchen Van Vlymen, vice president of human resources at StratEx.

The initiative was developed to educate employees about their peers’ backgrounds, identities and unique perspectives. This will help colleagues form meaningful connections and provide the company with a deeper understanding of its employees’ values.

Transparency is key

Employee satisfaction is largely influenced by confidence in senior management. Employees want to feel like they are part of the company and that their efforts are making an impact. Include them in conversations about strategy development, market growth and any setbacks your team may experience.

"We share updates about board meetings, strategy, finances and deals on a regular basis - the good and the bad," said Claire Vo, vice president of product. "Through this culture of transparency, we hope that all of our Optinauts will feel engaged and have a sense of ownership over the work happening throughout our company. At Optimizely, there are no closed doors when it comes to making an impact."

Planning social outings

Social events, such as happy hours, team dinners and sponsored lunches, foster personal relationships and strengthen professional ones.

"I was unaware of how crucial weekly happy hours would be before joining System1," Carrie Yu, data analyst at System1, stated. "Happy hours provide a chance for people to speak to colleagues in other teams about work-related matters as well as personal ones. It creates an avenue for approaching those colleagues later with questions, for additional information, or simply to foster a friendship that wouldn't have been possible otherwise."

Develop a volunteer program

Volunteering has been shown to strengthen relationships between employees and encourage them to take more interest in their work. Furthermore, 89 percent of workers in the United States believe that companies which offer opportunities to volunteer have better work environments. Social events allow employees to form personal relationships, but volunteering helps establish deeper connections based on shared interests and passions.

The Chicago-based talent acquisition platform Yello has made volunteering a central part of its company culture.

"All of our best ideas start with our employees," said Jen Meza, vice president of people at Yello. "A group launched our volunteer committee, Yello Cares, to organize volunteering events the whole company can participate in."

Volunteerism brings employees together to achieve common goals and promotes discussion about giving back. Meza said, "team members have the opportunity to introduce their coworkers to causes they are passionate about."

Employees should be encouraged to take ownership of their work

Giving employees the opportunity to lead a meeting or spearhead a project will help them connect with their work on a deeper level, resulting in greater job satisfaction.

"It is essential to own processes and provide actionable feedback," said Jonathan Petrovich, customer success operations manager at Los Angeles-based EZ Texting.

This approach not only promotes flexibility and communication between teams, but also provides employees with the opportunity to make a tangible impact on the organization's success.

"EZ Texting places a great importance on ownership - it is something that is emphasized at every level. My team is constantly working to incorporate new and different processes to help us reach our goals," says Petrovich.

Every employee should have a seat at the table

Encourage an owner-mentality across your team by giving employees a voice. This will make them feel valued and foster an important emotional investment in the company’s success.

"CrunchTime is committed to engaging its employees by breaking down communication barriers," says Stephen Stone, Marketing Manager at CrunchTime.

"Most of our employees have restaurant experience, so we are always thinking of new and innovative ways to improve restaurant management processes," he adds. New hires bring recent restaurant experience and insights into how modern restaurants work, which is valuable for a company innovating restaurant management.

Recognize and Reward Employees

If you are wondering how to motivate employees, you may have considered some type of monetary reward. However, there are easy ways to engage and motivate employees in the workplace - without money. Simply put, employees want to know that their contributions to the company and culture are not unnoticed.

By recognizing employee achievements, you create a positive feedback loop that encourages them and their peers to continue putting forth great effort. Companies that take the time to recognize employees based on values see a 90 percent positive impact on employee engagement, according to Rachel Kopp, vice president of people operations at OrthoFi. Kopp believes that core values serve as guidelines to help managers determine which behaviors to reward and which behaviors to coach.

"We have an employee recognition tool where every member of our team can give points to a fellow team member and select the core value associated with the reward," Kopp said. The 'Core Value Conquistador' is an employee of the month type program where the selected individual exemplified our company's core value in the prior month.

Be a role model for others

A lack of engagement from the C-suite and managers will lead to a lack of engagement from employees. To motivate employees and achieve greatness, leadership needs to believe in their team. Andy Dey, CTO of Vertafore based in Denver, takes on the responsibility of supporting his team and removing roadblocks so they can do their best work.

"Our collective intelligence is greater than that of any one individual. To win together, we must motivate and empower the team, instilling a belief that anything is possible if we put our hearts and minds into it," Dey said.

Prioritize employee engagement in your organization for the benefit of your business. Use the following tips to improve employee engagement in your company.