5 Employee Engagement Trends in 2019

by Liam Smith Blogger

In order to have a successful company, you need to make sure that you have a great team behind you. Staff that are engaged with their employer feel more engaged with the business objectives too. They are the ones that are going to do their best to make sure that their employer gets ever closer to success.

The only trouble is, it can be really hard to work out the ways to ensure that your employees are engaged with your business. As far as employee perks go, everyone is different and therefore different things will appeal to different staff members.

To help engage with your employees, we have put together our guide of the top engagement trends for 2019 and just why they may be a great idea.

Offer perks that your employees want

There is absolutely no point offering a perk to your employees that they are not going to want. This is not only a waste of time for you as a business, but is also going to mean that your efforts to engage with your staff could actually end up falling flat on its face.

You need to find out more about the type of perks that your employees want, rather than just jumping into the deep end and creating them. Speak to them about what is important to them, what they value and what they would appreciate and then go from there.

Flexible working schedules

Flexible working may sound like a terrifying prospect for any employer, but it has actually been proven to be a great way to engage with your employees. The idea is that they choose which working pattern works within their own lives, of course, always keeping within the needs of the business. For some people this could be starting 15 minutes later so that they can do the school run or taking longer lunches once a week in order to care for loved ones.

If you are concerned about how a flexible working pattern could impact your business, then you could always offer up an employee app or employee engagement software to your staff. They could put in their own working pattern, which others can see, therefore offering up a chance to plan accordingly, making sure that the office/work is always covered as it should be.

Encourage and advocate a healthy work and life balance

We live in a world now whereby stress and emotional strain seem to be all around us. Whilst a small amount of stress from work (and from life for that matter) isn’t going to do any long-term harm, when that stress is for an extended period then it can have a negative impact. It is important that our employees work hard for us as a business of course, but that should never be at the detriment of their home life.

Unfortunately, many staff members don’t feel comfortable working towards a healthy work/life balance, which means that you are going to need to take charge advocating and encouraging them to think about better ways that they can make sure that they are enjoying the best of both worlds. Try setting an example by not answering work emails late at night and during the small hours of the morning and your employees will know it’s okay not to be available 24/7 for inquiries.

Allow for both vertical and horizontal promotions

Movement within a company is important. After all, there are very few staff members who are going to want stick in the same role for their entire career. One way to make sure that you engage with your staff is to allow for promotions within the company. Of course, for the most part this will be vertical promotions, as in taking a step higher in their career. But you may also find that your staff value horizontal promotions too, which is when they side-step into another team, usually in a role that is different, but the same level within the company.

Use engagement surveys and analysis to gain key insights on how your staff are feeling

You never know what you can improve on in your employee engagement, unless you take the time to ask. This means that you need to create and then analyse engagement surveys, an assortment of questions that are designed to find out not only how your staff are feeling, but also if they have any recommendations. By finding out the things that you can do for your staff to make sure that they feel more engaged, you will be taking big steps towards one team of employees working for you.

As you can see, there are a variety of ways that you can try and engage with your employees as best you can. Why not try some of them out for yourself and see if you can create a bond with them that means that they are willing to try their best for your business?