At People Lab, we’re passionate about sharing what works. We think it’s really important to spread the word about employee 
engagement – after all, if everyone was engaged and happy at work, wouldn’t the world be a much better place?
We’ve taken a selection of top tips from our ebook, ‘What’s your #toptip for engaging employees?’ If you’d like to read or download a copy of the ebook, you can find it here.
Fancy adding your tip to the collection? Simply share your tip in the comments section below – we’d love to hear it.
Stop Talking, Start Listening
While listening, remember not all needs are commonly articulated, and some might not be openly discussed at work – you’ll need a framework for understanding these.
Piers Bishop, Director at howtomotivateateam.com
Listen to what employees have to say and act upon that where you can. If you sit in a central function never assume you know more than people in the field and the regions – you don’t. So ask them, get them involved, tell them what you’ll do with their feedback and tell them when you have acted on the feedback – keep them involved throughout the whole communications cycle.
Terri Wade, Freelance Communications Specialist
Involve Me
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Our #toptip is involvement!
Pablo Lacasia, Internal Communications & Corporate Social Responsibility Regional Manager at Grupo ASSA
Our latest #toptip is to have a weekly knowledge hour out of the office (usually a cafe) but in summer a central city park on a topic chosen by our employees who take turns to choose an area they want to develop.
Michaela Drum, Managing Director at Added Insight Ltd
Give me an inspiring leader
Spend time getting to know people in your team. Some people will not share personal life things, some will over share, but being engaged with the troops at a person level, whilst keeping a professional distance will help bring a team together. When a new member of the team joins, take the time within the first couple of hours to have some quality time with them – 30 minutes face to face chat/welcome/’is everything ok?’ time will pay dividends later.
As a boss of a large team, make sure you understand what the most junior role does… e.g. you may be the boss of 100 people in a call centre, but if you don’t know how to answer the phone and log a call, you will have no credibility… Emptying the bins if they are full shows that no job is beneath you… Yes, even if you are in your sharp suit…
Andy Lever, SAP Implementation Consultant
My simple answer to this complex question is to see the person and not the post. Don’t make attitude assumptions based in someone’s position in an organisation without knowing their history. Cynicism often contains a core of constructive criticism…
Martin Stein
Encourage happiness, fun & passion
Keep it simple and clear – be unashamedly passionate about what you’re trying to achieve.
Trevor Merriden, Owner of Merriborn Media
My top tip for engaging people is “passion.” To bring about true clinical engagement with change you really need to believe that the change you want to make is for the best, far better than the status quo and you need to be able to “sell” the change to all. I believe the best way to do this is to use passion.
Angie McKeane, Associate Nurse Director, NHS
Encourage Trust & Honesty
My top tip for engaging employees is using communications to build trust with employees.
Leaders earn that trust when employees know more about the leader as a person – the human, softer, personal side. Employees want to know what kind of people they are working for. Once they know that, the trust factor goes up. Once you have trust, people will trust both you and your decisions, your judgment. When you have Trust, you have Engagement. And when you have Engagement, you have a greater probability to positively impact the bottom line through better financial performance like margin and earnings per share.
Christopher Till, Internal Communications Manager at Rockwell Automation
Have a good strategy & plan in place
Articulate the vision and values of the organisation. Respect the past, acknowledge the challenges of today and build on the future. Ensure the vision and values are lived by being inculcated across training, performance management, rewards etc. Keep the comms plan alive.
Paul Beesley, Senior Consultant at Beyond Theory
Implement a “long game” communications plan that facilitates employee understanding of your organization’s environment and challenges. Understanding is a foundation for engagement.
Martin Birt, Consultant at HRAskMe.com
Feeling inspired? Take a look at the full ebook here, and please do let us know your thoughts. Don’t forget to share your #toptip with us before you go, in the comments section below.
