4 Ways Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement

December 10, 2016 / in Employee Motivation

Most seasoned executives have been to a company meeting where employees stared off into space with glazed eyes and appeared to be disengaged. When the point of the rendezvous was to help them re-engage and move along with business, if the meeting was held right after lunch — the hour for the traditional Mexican siesta — that may be the problem. But jokes aside, the disengagement could instead stem from a lack of meaningful performance incentives.

Strategies for Improving Engagement

According to business psychology, there are hundreds of approaches companies can take to increase the engagement — and, by extension, improve the performance — of their workers. But those strategies have a broader range of application than others. Below, we list four such strategies, and comment on each from the perspective of employee motivation.

1. Be Generous With Financial Compensation

Mark Twain famously said, “The lack of money is the root of all evil.” His statement is a humorous rejoinder to the Biblical observation that money is root of all evil, but to employees who are under financially compensated, Twain’s aphorism speaks the truth.

Misery from lackluster compensation leads workers to feel unappreciated, which leads to low morale, which leads to a lack of motivation to be engaged, which leads to lack of productivity. In reality, not being generous with employees can be costlier than ponying up and providing merit pay, performance-based financial incentives, or at least praise if you have the kind of culture for it.

2. Offer Incentive Travel Trips to Top Performers

Incentive travel trips to unforgettable destinations that entail awesome activities don’t replace financial compensation, but they can serve as a meaningful motivator to upper level employees who are accustomed to receiving generous bonuses, raises, stock options, etc. The key is to ensure that the trip is only awarded once cost value creation, as the novelty of the journey is largely responsible for motivating travelers to perform well enough to qualify for future travel.

3. Implement a Well-Defined Promotional Track

Not to be rhetorical, but what kind of employees would you rather have: ones who don’t mind staying in their current position forever, or ones who are motivated to succeed greatly and earn their place of higher value? The company offers job promotions, but not every business gives its employees a clear, experience-based and performance-based appraisal of how the promotional process works.

According to Peter Vastak, Director Sales & Marketing at Engraving Services Co., “Replacement costs for an employee can cost a company anywhere between 100-250% of the employee’s annual salary.” Creating a visible career idea of the promotional path helps keep them in-house and motivated to reach the next tier of success in their work life.

4. Lead With “Carrots” instead of “Sticks”

In The Carrot Principle — a seminal book on employee performance in relation to leadership styles — researchers Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick state that “Recognition answers a basic human need: to matter to those with whom we work.” Furthermore, “[Th]e #1 reason employees leave an organization is because they felt unappreciated.”

A style that recognizes mistakes far more than successes is a management style that leads with “sticks” — a style that recognizes mistakes far more than successes — instead of a management style that leads with “carrots” — a style that essentially takes the opposite tack. If you want employees involved in their work, you need to keep them engaged to engage more deeply with company business if your business would take aim for greatness!

Who We Are

Incentive Travel Solutions is an incentive travel trip planner that specializes in creating and managing unforgettable, incentive-based travel trips that support teambuilding and motivation in the workplace. To inquire about our services, please call us today at (704) 540-1482, or use our contact form. We look forward to learning about your business and its reward structure.