If there's one thing we know about employee engagement, it's that many things affect it. The core factors of engagement form the backbone of how your company understands your relationship with work. These components of engagement are central to everyone's experience of the workplace, no matter their age, industry, or role. You should consider them to be the minimum requirements of a happy, effective employee.
The core factors form a spectrum from the smallest parts of your day-to-day job, to your team dynamics, to how you relate to the company as a whole.
Job satisfaction is all about the health of the relationship between a person and their daily work. It's the difference between ‘I love what I do’ and ‘Please, Monday, stay away.’
Job satisfaction fuels the day-to-day business of doing the work, doing it well, and feeling adequately rewarded in terms of both compensation and autonomy. It's the nuts and bolts of engagement because if an employee doesn't like what they do for a living or what they're getting in return, no amount of vacation time or team bonding is going to change that.
Employees are, first and foremost, people with needs and concerns that stretch far beyond the office. Personal engagement takes a whole-person view of employees and ensures that work-life and life-life make room for and support each other.
Does your work leave room for your life - family, friends, weekend barbeques and football games? Remember, you work to live, you don't live to work. Stress levels are next, to ensure that you’re healthy and happy. Finally, personal engagement looks at your ability to be yourself at work. You’re unique - that's great - and feeling safe to be who you are at work is a key part of being engaged.
Visible future is all about the path you see stretching in front of you. Do you know where your career is headed? Engaged employees have a clear path for both skill growth and career advancement; they know how far they can go in their current position and how to get to the next level should they want to. Visible future is also about the future of your company. Has leadership shared where you're going? Knowing about the journey and being excited about that journey help you be your best.
Teamwork, it's a fact of life. Whether they're formal teammates or simply people you encounter on a daily basis, the people you work with have a big impact. Team dynamics is all about understanding the communication, cohesion, and leadership qualities that make working in groups possible.
Does your team have a strong, supportive leader? When we talk about team dynamics, we're looking for the ways in which the individuals you work with dampen or amplify your best skills, ideas, and the uniqueness you bring to the table.
Is your job just a job or is it something more? While purpose alignment might sound lofty, it's all about understanding the why behind your work, your company, and your future.
These are the core factors that form part of an overarching employee engagement strategy. It is easy to understand the what and the why, but these are the first steps in understanding the how and helping you to reap the benefits of engagement and motivated employees.
If you’d like more information, get in touch with us at anythingspossible@drpgroup.com to see what solutions we have up our sleeves to help you boost your employee engagement levels.