Employee Engagement: Building Loyalty Among Your Employees

2022 was the year of “The Great Resignation”. As per the federal JOLTS report, about 50.5 million people left their jobs in 2022, outdoing the earlier record set in 2021. A trend arose during the COVID-19 pandemic era: an increase in voluntary departures. Most of these people quit their old jobs to take new ones. Enough job prospects, remote work, and higher wages and salaries fuelled the trend. When employees resign or leave voluntarily, it’s much more than an inconvenience for the employer. When you have to replace a single employee, the cost can grow up to 2X the annual compensation of that person. As an employer, you must stem the tide of workers leaving and understand what you can do best to strengthen employee loyalty.

Top 5 Tips to Further Employee Loyalty

Tip #1

Learn what your employees need the most now!

It isn’t wrong to ask your employees what they like most. Your employees’ needs and expectations from you have changed since the pandemic hit the world. Identify their expectations and act on them. “Listen and respond”, says Amy deCastro, VP of HR at Schneider Electric. If the decision-making process happens top-bottom, employee loyalty may go for a toss. Let people contribute; when they do that, it represents the broader picture. You can engage employee resource groups and focus groups on deciding activities and their benefits. Even feedback can be from the bottom-top, and the UnlockTalent employee engagement platform enables your employees with it. The tangible outcomes of listening and responding to your people can’t be a one-size-fits-all advantage or program. Every employee doesn’t need to enjoy every benefit for the employee engagement program to be successful.

Tip #2

Boost connections in a world that works virtually!

When working remotely, people either glare at their computer screens or frequently at their faces on those screens. People lacked connection, which primarily led to the Great Resignation while making employee loyalty challenging. In a remote working culture, attrition rates are bound to rise. As a leader, you must build and nurture human linking and social interaction beyond the workplace. In a virtual world, people’s ties to their workplace matter. To simplify things, you can employ an employee engagement tool in your organization. Your people will stay connected to their peers and managers, can see who is working on what, align themselves to organizational goals, and achieve what is needed of them. You can even recognize your employees while engaging them and monitoring their performance.

Tip #3

Note that flexibility isn’t going anywhere!

Your employees prefer working for a company that allows them to work flexibly, i.e., anytime, anywhere. Greater worker autonomy is here to stay. People feel that flexible work is a novel operating model. According to a Global Talent Trends Report, 2022 by LinkedIn, workers are 2.6x times happier and 2.1x more likely to recommend working at an organization when they can choose their work schedule and location. You can be creative with what flexibility can seem like. For instance, you can allow your employees to complete a fixed number of hours in a week and do so for a few months in the year. They may be ready to do this at a reduced pay too. Flexibility creates employee loyalty in today’s times. Flexibility comes in handy with employee engagement software too. Your employees can track their goal progress and that of others as and when they want.

Tip #4

Make recognition a frequent exercise!

“People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise, and rewards”.

-Dale Carnegie

One of the key exercises that a leader must engage in to boost employee engagement is employee recognition. After all, who doesn’t want to be appreciated? Your employees show their loyalty when appreciated and stay longer and grow more productive. Ensure a good job is well rewarded. Memorable praise happens unexpectedly. You should recognize a task well done and give proper incentives for successfully accomplishing the job. Employee recognition software, such as UnlockTalent, features a praise wall that allows you to recognize your peers, reports, and managers via badges like “Team Player”, “Rockstar”, “Super Boss”, etc. Besides, as a leader, often have personal conversations with your team members. You must know how they are doing at work and outside work.

Tip #5

Investing in their development is key!

When you show your employees, you are interested in their development as a professional; they show you their loyalty. Make learning and training a crucial part of your employee engagement programs. You want your people to be the best at what they do. Thus, you must give them the tools and resources they need, helping them develop skills they need for their current and future job roles and responsibilities. Employee engagement platforms enable your employees access to self-paced learning resources, considering their goals and preferences. This kind of learning aids your staff to re-engage with their work and earn their loyalty.

How far have you gone to improve your employee loyalty?

Loyalty is based on trust, and trust cannot be built overnight, so work on employee engagement programs and benefits. When you engage your employees, you gain their confidence, and they show their loyalty to you. The safest bet is to employ an employee engagement platform and choose one that takes care of alignment, performance, recognition, learning, and engagement.