The Best Ways to Increase Employee Engagement

If you’ve ever managed a team of employees you know how important it is to build rapport and camaraderie, both for the sake of improved business results and so that colleagues enjoy their workplace. You have to come up with an effective employer branding strategy to keep your team productive, maintain connections and to retain the best ones.

There are many excellent ways to tighten up a team, and the importance of employee engagement cannot be overstated: this Gallup poll says that only 13% of workers worldwide are engaged at work and that there’s a causal connection between engagement at work and achieving key performance outcomes like productivity, profitability and customer ratings. Here are some good tips for improving employee engagement.

Technological Communications

Staff scheduling software is a cloud-based app that’s specifically designed to reduce the number of times restaurants spend creating a schedule, but it also does wonders for communications.

There is a “wall” feature on the app that staff access on their phones, so colleagues are connected and engaged remotely. For example, if you’re looking for someone to fill in for your shift, you can write a post on the wall. Your colleagues will receive a notification right away, and if someone can take your shift, they’ll simply say so on the wall. This reduces the time spent stressing, and ensures the restaurant is always adequately staffed.

This doesn’t only serve an immediate and practical function; the ongoing stream of communications perpetually in the background can help colleagues bond — sometimes people find it easier to chat through texts than face to face. Now, they can do both.

Aside from increased employee engagement resulting from both improved communications and the app’s seamless approach to scheduling, you can check this out to learn about all the other benefits staff scheduling software can bring your restaurant.

Team Building

A great manager knows how to value the strengths of every member of their team. Here are some simple but important methods you can use right away to help make your colleagues a closer-knit group.

• Lunch discussions: nothing makes people happy like eating! If the company buys lunch for the whole department, or a team, and provides a nice place to chat, colleagues form bonds and feel more connected to the company.
• Icebreakers at meetings: this applies more with teams who don’t meet frequently, but when new colleagues assemble in the early days, icebreaker games are a great way to build connections quickly.
• Volunteering for charity: colleagues who work together to help other people will be generally better at working together to accomplish their own professional goals. Of course, it’s also important to support a great charity.

Proper Training and Expectations

Employees feel satisfied when they know they’re doing their job well. Alternatively, they may feel alienated from their work if they’re constantly not succeeding in it. Set your employees up for success by making sure they’re properly trained, and establish goals and expectations that are reasonable. Ultimately, their success is yours, too.

Whether you use the latest technology or time-tested methods to build camaraderie among your team, you’ll see better results from each employee, which leads to better results overall.