Ten top employee engagement tips

1. Engage with insight: Listen to your people and act upon issues that are important to them. Build that insight into your narrative and messaging to create a culture where employees feel like they have a voice within the business;
2. Find the right channels: How do your people like to receive information? Tailor your channel strategy to your audience so that people will want to engage with your narrative. Embrace social media and new technologies to stay ahead of the game;
3. Leadership perception: People want to know and trust the Leadership of an organisation. Leader’s can have a real impact on engagement if they are good communicators. Regular blogging, road-shows, and webcasts are effective ways to manage perception;
4. Manager communications: Line managers are the primary communicators of the message and the primary vehicles for feedback. Ensure your managers are equipped with the skills and tools to be effective communicators;
5. Corporate Social Responsibility: Don’t ignore CSR as an effective engagement tool. A good CSR policy and structure can have a positive impact on engagement. It can be cost effective and also be part of a wider reputation management strategy;
6. Engage with your union reps: Build strong relations with your union reps: where the agenda conflicts look to find common ground and work to resolve differences. A difficult relationship with a union can have a really negative impact on overall engagement;
7. Build a network: Identify communications champions in different areas of the business to act as the eyes and ears. Work with champions to manage issues and act as secondary communicators, they will be credible messengers within the business;
8. A different perspective: When communicating change map out the position of an employee. How will this impact? What are the worries and concerns? Getting the tone of the message right at the outset can avoid negative impact on overall engagement;
9. The right direction: Provide regular updates on direction and performance. The organisational journey is a key catalyst behind engagement; sharing the story with your people is a critical driver. Replace quarterly updates with regular blogs and films;
10. It is all about the conversation: A two way communications culture is the most effective model to drive high engagement. Listening and understanding employee perspective is a foundation to increasing engagement. Encourage managers to turn communicating into a conversation. Build feedback and interactive features into your channels.

Related blogs:

Is CSR an effective engagement tool in times of economic turbulence?

Does social media work in a business environment?

How do you keep employees engaged at times of change?

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