Employee engagement is simple: Talk & Listen

The real value in any business is its people. The more engaged your employees are, the more effective they’ll be; people with a shared sense of vision and purpose work better together. But listening to your employees is just as important as talking to them: insight from the front line can directly affect your bottom line.

With that in mind we’ve identified five simple, jargon free, guidelines to ensure you stay firmly rooted on the path to effective employee engagement.

1) Ensure you have a clear, structured vision of where you want to be - unless you are sure of what your goals are, and the method by which you aim to achieve them it will be impossible to communicate them to your team. Forward thinking also lets you plan for any potential bumps in the road.

2) Proactively communicate that vision to your employees, using a structured and multi-channel approach. Sometimes a text message reminder or a personalised update via voicemail says a lot more than a formal document - although they of course have their place too. It’s also vital that your employees know the reason behind why these objectives have been decided upon. “We need to ensure all customer queries are addressed within 24 hours to keep customer satisfaction rates high and encourage loyalty” means more than “make sure you answer all your emails by the end of the day.”

3) Be consistent in your behaviours - lead the way and others will follow. The old saying ‘practice what you preach’ is particularly apt. here - you can communicate your objectives until you’re blue in the face but if senior management are not seen to be following suit you’ll soon be out there on your own.

4) Regularly consult your employees for their feedback - asking your employees how they feel about key issues will not only let them know that you value their opinion but it may also teach you something too. It is often small insightful observations that can make the biggest impact on your business. To ensure maximum input make it as easy as possible for them to share their views - why not use text messages?

5) Proactively utilise the insight gained and make sure those responsible for giving it to you know about it! Going through the motions to collect feedback is all well and good but it is virtually useless if you don’t make use of it. If employees know their opinions are genuinely listened to then they will be much more inclined to share their views with you in the future.