There is a long-established cause-and-effect relationship between employee engagement and business performance. Here, Safety Marking Inc. – pavement marking industry leader of Bridgeport, CT – explores how managers can help create employee engagement. Managers must realize that they need to invest in employee development to win their engagement and loyalty.
“At Safety Marking we believe that to make genuine progress in the areas of employee engagement and performance, managers must look past previous models and consider the entire experience of people within the business. In short, employee engagement is the byproduct of a positive employee experience,” shares Mark Kelly, Founder and President of Safety Marking Inc.
While a single role or function can help some organizational initiatives, the entire employee experience will suffer unless viewed as a cross-functional endeavor. Everyone from senior leadership to HR to line supervisors and, of course, each individual employee must take responsibility for their engagement and experience.
Safety Marking’s commitment to developing employee engagement through improving the employee experience across the board includes investing in the following crucial areas.
Ability to Grow Within the Organization
Promoting from within provides a necessary avenue for workers to learn new skills and shoulder new responsibilities. If employees feel stuck in their current roles or functions, they will often feel the need to leave the company to achieve professional satisfaction. Lack of career development is often cited as the reason people leave their current employer. Providing a path for growth that allows employees to remain is far better than replacing them.
Creating a Positive Culture
Work should be a place that employees enjoy going back to each day. For a positive culture to exist, there can be no tolerance for toxic behaviors in the workplace.
Developing Trust in Leadership
Absolute integrity at the highest levels of an organization is critical. Employees are watching the company leaders’ actions, ever evaluating the trustworthiness of their company leaders. A crack in a leader’s integrity, even if unrelated to work, will be perceived by subordinate employees as a potential threat to their ability to trust that leader.
Listening to Employees
Everyone needs to be heard. Even more than having their ideas implemented, employees want to know that they are listened to and their concerns are understood.
“The relationship between Mark Kelly at Safety Marking, Inc. and Dale Carnegie Training goes back decades. The reason is a belief that by learning and demonstrating the Dale Carnegie principles for how people treat each other internally and externally sets a standard company culture which is focused on delivering results. Trust is strong and communication is consistent which produces a safe work environment as well. Mark Kelly and his team at Safety Marking have documented results from the belief that when you invest in employees it will create more enthusiasm and engagement. Dale Carnegie stated that these were the secrets to successful people. In fact, famed entrepreneur Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic said, ‘Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.’ Mark has created this type of loyalty with his team by embedding the Dale Carnegie values and principles into the ethos of the company. We at Dale Carnegie Training are proud of our partnership with Safety Marking because of the small influence our human relations philosophy has had on the organization’s achievements. Mark Kelly took what he learned, inserted it into the corporate culture, and has realized amazing success,” SharesBob Dickson, President of Dale Carnegie Training.
Good Compensation and Benefits
If employees are worried about covering the cost of life’s necessities, they are not fully engaged in their jobs. Competitive compensation and good benefits will free workers to focus on their craft.
Opportunities to Learn
It is natural for people to want to improve upon their current situation. They recognize that gaining knowledge is the key to increasing satisfaction in life. Employers who provide learning avenues can fill this innate need for growth to positively influence their employees’ work experience.
Sense of Belonging
Family is essential to all of us. Any business’s goal should be to create a ‘work family’ where employees feel they belong, are essential, and contribute to the entire team’s success.
“What I enjoy about working in a family business is knowing that we are all working to make sure the business is successful; we all depend on one another to do our very best every day. We cooperate to ensure the company is as effective and as efficient as possible for everyone involved,” shared Daniel King, Manager of Learning & Development at Safety Marking, Inc.
Originally published on: thesiliconreview.com | Article Link
