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"To win the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace," according to Doug Conant, a former CEO of Campbell's Soup. Employee engagement training for managers can teach managers how to encourage and keep employees.
When your employees are engaged, they are more likely to be invested in the work they do, rather than just going through the motions. A company with engaged employees sees work quality, productivity, and talent retention increase.
Conversely, disengaged team members lead work quality, productivity, and talent retention to suffer.
To win the workplace, managers need to encourage employee engagement. To promote and grow employee engagement, you need employee engagement training.
What Is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment your employees have to the company, its mission, and its goals — it can be summed up as employee buy-in to the company.
Engaged employees care. They don't just want to contribute to and advance the company—they want to grow with it. Engagement shows through exceptional work results, like better products, improved services, increased sales, and expanded customer satisfaction.
Moreover, employee engagement is not the same as employee happiness or satisfaction. While those are important to the well-being of both employees and the company, they are different.
Happy or satisfied employees can perform their tasks yet remain unengaged. Low turnover and employees working extra hours don't necessarily equate with employee engagement.
Manager engagement with employees is key to fostering engaged employees. Employees with engaged managers become committed themselves because they feel respected and valued.
Three factors that have a powerful impact on employee engagement are:
- Relationships with managers
- Organizational pride
- Trust in organizational leadership
While building trust and relationships takes time, it is worth the effort to reap the benefits of having more employees with higher engagement levels.
It takes a lot to engage employees, so employee engagement training for managers is critical.
Why Is Employee Engagement Training Important?
Employee engagement (or lack thereof) has a massive impact on businesses. Employee engagement training is a critical aspect of this. That's because companies that engage their employees and create a strong culture see quality of work, productivity, and customer satisfaction increase.
A recent study by TinyPulse found that the number one reason people leave a company is for career growth. The same report also found:
- 44% of workers don't feel like their positions offer sufficient growth
- 60% don't think their managers have clearly defined their roles and responsibilities
- 75% don't strongly agree their feedback and suggestions are taken seriously
What would those statistics mean if applied to your company's numbers?
Higher levels of employee engagement relate to lower attrition rates. Fortunately, employee engagement training can help improve the levels of employee engagement.
What Causes Low Employee Engagement?
When employees don't feel valued by managers or the company as a whole, they're less likely to engage. These feelings can often relate to fair compensation, but there is more to it than that.
If your employees feel disconnected, unmotivated, and unappreciated, they either won't engage, or you'll slowly lose their engagement.
As a manager, you may be unintentionally contributing to lower levels of engagement, and employee engagement training can help correct this.
How are you conveying expectations?
Unclear or erratic expectations can cause employees to disengage. Even if you are busy, it's crucial to convey clear, concise expectations.
While sometimes changes to a project can't be helped, and you have to change course mid-stream, plan projects carefully from the beginning. If things do change, make sure to let employees know that you appreciate the work they've done thus far and explain what the change is and why it's necessary.
Are you unintentionally showing favoritism?
While it's natural that you'll get along better with some employees than others, be careful not to show favoritism as a manager. For example, do you give more of your time to or share more information with one employee than others?
Favoritism can be unintentional, but your employees notice, so endeavor to be consistent in how you treat all of your employees. When managers play favorites, it causes some employees to feel excluded, and they are less likely to engage.
Are you distracted and disengaged?
Understandably, you'll become occasionally distracted, especially during busy stretches; however, be careful not to become too distracted or disengaged from your employees. While you don't want to micromanage, your employees should see you often and find you accessible and approachable.
Give your team members attention when interacting with them. Don't half-listen while checking your email or reading something else. Model the behavior you want to see from your teams. After all, if you ignore them, they'll start to reciprocate, but they'll do the same if you engage.
Be involved, engaged, and supportive.
Are you micromanaging?
Like favoritism, micromanagement can be unintentional. Remember to step back and trust your employees to do what they need to do.
Give them clear guidance and encourage them, but constantly checking up with employees or giving them overly detailed and frequent instruction isn't helpful. It's detrimental to morale and performance.
If employees feel micromanaged, they think you — and management as a whole — don't trust them. Micromanaging causes employees to disengage and takes up a lot of your time and energy.
What Is Employee Engagement Training for Managers?
Employee engagement training for managers consists of guidance and strategies for knowing why and how to encourage employee engagement in your organization. While building trust and relationships takes time, it is worth the effort to reap the benefits of more employees with higher engagement levels.
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