5 Simple Ways to Build a Loyal and Engaged Staff

As a business owner, you’ve probably spent a lot of time developing a set of core values for your company. You may have also developed a mission statement to direct your enterprise toward bigger and better things. But all of those efforts will fall flat if you don’t have one crucial element: a team of loyal, engaged employees.

In one recent study, 71 percent of polled executives stated that they considered high employee engagement necessary for overall business success. Those results are unsurprising—engaged employees are more likely to take responsibility for their work, require less supervision, and get more done overall. Plus, loyal employees are less likely to leave the company, meaning business owners waste fewer resources on turnover and hiring. Essentially, loyal workers are invaluable resources—not commodities—and they should be treated as such.

If you’re wondering how to up the level of employee engagement in your own company, these five tips will help you begin building a loyal and engaged staff today.

Practice Clear Communication

One of the biggest causes of employee frustration is a lack of information from superiors. Employees need to have some idea of the big picture in order to be really engaged with their work. Make a point of communicating overall company goals with your workers, and ensure that the information you share is truthful. Trust, once lost, can be very difficult to regain.

Encourage your employees to communicate openly, too. Establish an open-door policy to give workers a sense of transparency and connectedness with leadership. A lot of great ideas can come from those actually working down in the trenches.

Measure Employee Engagement and Implement Feedback

Take time to measure worker engagement periodically. Use open-ended questions to allow employees space to discuss feedback or concerns. Combine that approach with other tools, like a quantitative scale of agreement, to collect more comprehensive data.

Related Article: Make Change Stick and Drive Employee Engagement

Once you’ve gathered that feedback, examine overall trends in satisfaction. Then—and this is the most important step—make visible changes to improve where needed. Employees will be much more loyal to a company that works to protect their interests.

Create an Inclusive Work Environment

One of the simplest and most effective ways to improve employee engagement is to change the phrasing you use to address your staff. When discussing office successes, use inclusive terms. Change “I closed that big sale,” to “We closed that big sale,” for example. Work efforts are generally collaborative, so make sure that recognition falls everywhere it’s deserved.

Inclusive rhetoric doesn’t just act as a verbal pat on the back, either. It’s actually an important aspect of team-building. If you want your employees to stay with your company, do everything you can to verbally confirm that they belong.

Establish Regular Protocol to Manage Disputes

When problems arise, have a system in place to resolve them. Let employees know that there is a fair, balanced course of action for overcoming such obstacles. Issues often seem a lot less worrisome when there’s a clear process for resolving them. Working through an established protocol will also help employees feel that they’re being treated fairly, mitigating any claims of favoritism.

Additionally, make sure to address problems promptly—don’t give them a chance to snowball into something larger. Employees should feel as though there are people in the workplace who care about hearing and resolving any issues they may have.

Hire Good People

It may sound cliché, but having the right person for the job can make a huge difference in how your workplace functions. Invest time in the hiring process and choose new employees carefully. Someone who is excited about the job is going to bring a lot of engagement to the table to begin with.

Don’t forget to verify whether your candidate’s values match those of the company. Do they seem like a good addition to your team as a whole? Instead of trying to force a round peg into a square hole, take the time to be more selective on the front end. It will mean better employee retention (and fewer problems) down the road.

At the end of the day, most employees just want to be heard and valued. Fostering real, positive relationships with your workers will help you cultivate a loyal and committed staff.

Which of the above tips will you use to start building a stronger, more engaged workforce?

Author: Alice Williams has an MA in Communication Studies with an emphasis in corporate communication and organizational communication. She writes on business, tech, HR and social media and contributes to a variety of online publications.