Leadership Development - Employee Engagement
Why don’t employees just do their job? It’s what they’re paid for! Umm, no, employees need a reason (aka motivation & engagement) from their leader to show up each day and do their best. It’s not just about the money.
Every employee who works for you had some type of motivation to be there in the first place. They put in the effort to find the job vacancy, apply, go through an interview process and now they’re working in the role – so what can you as a leader do to tap into that motivation and feed it to achieve engagement?
There are 3 key aspects to engaging an employee:
1. Provide employees with the information, tools and resources they need to do the job:
This is a no brainer! In any task you’re trying to complete, whether it be running a $135m project or as simple as assembling a new couch you just bought; if you don’t have the correct information and tools to get it right, it’s frustrating. Provide your employees with the information, tools and resources they need to succeed…and they will.
2. Make employees feel valued:
Employees look to a leader for guidance and advice. You can make your employees feel valued with little effort by having a genuine chat to them each day, putting structured meetings in place that add value and invite their input; and by being transparent with them. Share as much information with your team as possible, hold nothing back except what is confidential.
3. Reinforce an employee’s purpose:
When you ask someone why they work, the majority answer is something along the lines of, ‘Because I have to earn money to pay the bills’ or ‘I have to come to work to keep me going’.
The purpose goes deeper than this.
Why do you have to pay the bills? Because I have to keep the power on, pay the mortgage, fund my son’s football, fund my daughter’s gymnastics, help my elderly mum out financially. Okay – this is where we’re getting to the purpose…you don’t just work for money, you work because you love your family and want to provide for them.
Your employees also go to work because they enjoy being active, they gain a sense of achievement from doing what they do and they enjoy working as part of a team.
As a leader, tap into the ‘purpose’ of why your team members show up to work every day. Every employee has a different underlying purpose as to why they work and it’s not just to get paid.
As a leader, remember a workplace goal can be repeated over and over again to employees, but unless they believe it and believe in it, the words are empty because they are not engaged. Leaders need to engage with employees to achieve the common goal.