5 ways to motivate and engage your employees

coinvolgimento dipendenti

Engagement of employees not only makes work more satisfying, but is also convenient

In the next 5 points we explain why it is better to involve your collaborators and how to do it. Enjoy the reading

1. Why is it convenient and who is responsible?

Aon Hewitt’s research analyzed the global trends in employee engagement and discovered two facts that are repeated in the best performing companies: 1) the business and strategies aimed at enhancing talent are intimately connected; and 2) employee leadership and engagement are essential to success.
The research also reveals that statistically there is a strong correlation between staff engagement and financial results. Specifically, it was discovered that, increasing the engagement of 5%, the turnover increases by 3%. The executives of these companies have realized that the involvement of the staff is one of their most important responsibilities.

2. How do companies increase staff involvement?

Eric Flamholtz, professor emeritus of the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, in this article explains that the engagement of people can vary in many nuances, from fully engaged to completely disengaged.
A fully engaged person has the following characteristics:

  • It identifies completely with the company
  • It is motivated to protect the organization
  • It is motivated to participate in achieving company objectives
  • Enjoy the successes of the company, as well as regret its failures
  • He sees an attack on the organization as an attack on himself.

A completely disengaged person manifests characteristics opposite to those mentioned above: he does not identify with the company, he is not motivated and he is indifferent to successes or attacks on the organization. From this analysis, we understand that the engagement of the personnel represents an asset. What do companies have to do to increase this investment?

They can influence the degree of engagement with the improvement of these factors:

  • Behavior of leaders
  • System for evaluating performances and incentives
  • Cultural values of the company

The factors mentioned above have a direct influence on engagement and are usually controllable by organizations.
The engagement also depends on the presence of some environmental factors, such as:

  • policies of openness to change and innovation
  • quality in internal communication
  • careful business planning
  • transparency in the decision-making process
  • effective coordination between various departments

These factors can influence the business climate which in turn has an impact on the engagement of individuals.

3. An effective tool to reward employees: welfare

Rewarding employees with a welfare plan has a double advantage. The first is an economic one, thanks to the 2016 Stability Law in Italy, rewarding a worker with a premium of € 1,000, costs the company € 1,000. Previously, the premium was considered as an increase in the paycheck and then taxed as a salary: the company paid almost double.
The second advantage is to improve the business climate and therefore to influence those environmental factors that affect the engagement and therefore the productivity of the personnel. Now more than ever, it is advisable to create a corporate welfare plan based on the evaluation of results and on the renewal of company processes.

4. Thanks to a welfare system the company will succeed in attracting and retaining talents

The research promoted by Zurich Italia and conducted by SWG analyzed the benefits of employee benefit on the productivity and competitiveness of Italian companies. Research shows that companies that invest in a welfare system benefit from increased employee productivity and increased talent retention. More details can be found at the following link.

5. I need to train staff to involve them in ever-increasing challenges

According to research conducted by Polimi, it emerged that the organizational challenge that 52% of companies see as a priority is the management of digital innovation. Fortunately, most companies have realized the need to change their way of working.
As David Rose, author of the best seller said: Angel Investing: “Every company designed for success in the early 20th century is doomed to fail in the 21st.”
First of all a cultural change is necessary if we want to survive in this century, starting from the awareness that in order to compete in an interconnected world, people must be trained in the use of new IT tools.

Would you also like to involve staff in continuous innovation? Then read Employees Engagement in Continuous Innovation