Increasing Employee Engagement
By Alisa

Let’s discuss some ways that you can increase your employees’ sense of engagement with your business.
Often, it comes down to sharing ownership – of inviting ideas big and small, of taking those ideas seriously, and communicating decisions after evaluating the choices. If your employees know that you listen, and that their input is valued and considered, then a decision you make is far more likely to be supported by your employees.
Another great way to engage your workers is to let them take ownership of their career development. When an employee is encouraged to figure out how she will gain the skills she needs, she’ll be far more interested in making it happen. It’s okay if some of your workers are confused, and expect you to solve all the problems. It takes some time to get everyone thinking proactively. Giving employees the freedom to come up with the solutions frees up the manager’s time, too.
Yet another good tool is having an employee recognition program. Create a team of people from many departments to generate ideas, and to select people to receive recognition. It can be an old-fashioned suggestion box, an intranet or email tool for people to send ‘atta-boys’ or ‘atta-girls’ for a job well done, soliciting input from clients or customers, or utilizing any of several software based recognition programs. Rewards can be as simple as a $5 Starbucks card, a preferred parking place, being recognized at an all-hands meeting, or can involve tangible rewards like an extra day off, or a company logo item. The variations are literally endless and can be customized to your company culture.