How to overcome three common employee engagement challenges

When it comes to measuring employee engagement, there are certain qualities that have a significant impact on engagement within the workplace. At Emplify, we quantify the presence or absence of these qualities using 14 underlying drivers of employee engagement.

Our employee engagement experts have spent years identifying and helping managers cater to these drivers, which include:

• Utilization
• Fairness
• Competency
• Autonomy
• Purpose
• Shared values
• Role clarity
• Friendship
• Feedback
• Manager
• Trust
• Professional development
• Authenticity
• PTO

Of these 14 drivers, there are three areas in which companies consistently score poorly:

1. Utilization

Employees feel that the organization effectively uses their abilities and skills.

2. Feedback

Employees feel that they receive adequate and helpful feedback.

3. Autonomy

Employees are trusted to use their expertise to make decisions about how to do their jobs.

These three drivers tend to score low together because they are so closely connected. If people aren’t given the opportunity to provide feedback, then they begin to feel underutilized, and lack the empowerment they need to complete work in their own ways.

So, once you know that your company is facing these challenges, now what? It can be a little overwhelming when you don’t know where to start. Fortunately, you can start solving for each of these drivers by simply giving employees a way to share feedback.

Here are three ways you can incorporate feedback into your organization

1. Confidential surveys

If you choose to integrate surveys into your feedback strategy, it’s important that you create an environment where your employees feel safe sharing their thoughts. They need to be able to trust that they can provide their honest opinions without fear of negative consequences of retribution down the road. This means creating a standard administration process where all surveys are completely confidential, and employees are protected from being identified in their responses.

2. Suggestion box

Consider opening your feedback channel even further with an anonymous comment box. This can be a physical or digital box, something that gives employees a way to safely voice their opinions on a consistent basis. This gives management the opportunity to actively address employee concerns, while encouraging additional feedback through these interactions.

3. 1:1 Meetings

Manager relationships play a vital role in employee engagement across any organization. One of the best ways to strengthen the relationship between manager and employee is through 1:1 conversations. These meetings are extremely useful for soliciting feedback from your team, and understanding how your people are truly feeling about their work.

Read more on engagement: Three strategies to motivate your workforce

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