A study undertaken by Right Management came to the conclusion that motivated professionals are 50% more productive. If we look at engagement levels in organisations worldwide, the USA and China sit in first place, with 19% of professionals considering themselves completely engaged in their work. India comes in in second, with 17%, and Brazil in third, with 16% engagement.

As the researcher Susan Fournier laid out in her articles on the relationship between clients and their brands, a happy customer is willing to pay more for the product or service of a specific brand.

In turn, a happy employee produces and delivers more and, consequently, generates more results for their company.

In an era of digital transformation, and inspired by the successful models of the largest technology companies in the world, organisations in general are incorporating innovative practices into their corporate policies.

Here are the 6 key tips on how to promote and foster employee engagement and motivate your workforce to share the greatly sought-after “sense of ownership”. This way, companies are able to generate much more proactivity, collaboration and especially more efficiency and better results for the whole organisation.

1. Clear and widespread purpose

Why does your company exist? Is this a question that all employees could answer? What is the context of your company in society? Answers to questions like these should be very clear.

They should also be widely disseminated throughout the organisation and incorporated into the work environment. When there is a clear purpose, an employee works with a more targeted focus, becomes more productive and provides an even better service to customers.

2. Good relationship

Issues with leadership is one of the main reasons behind resignation requests. Losing talent because of that is certainly not what companies want. Employees in general need inspiration and managers that are models of conduct. These leaders need to have a good relationship with their team to motivate them to produce more.

3. Recognition, value and feedback

Recognising each employee for their performance makes them feel more motivated and engaged. It is crucial that their mission within the company and the importance of the work they do is clear to them.

Giving praise each time a task is executed well and establishing a regular feedback system are ways to make this work.

This tool is important in the relationship process between a leader and his or her team and is vital for the development of the worker to be aligned with the company’s goals.

However, stimulation should be a constant presence when we’re talking about innovation, empowerment and autonomy, even if this results in failures. These failures need to be seen and dealt with together with the workforce, as an efficient learning method.

4. Compensation and incentives

Some authors believe that the current generation of professionals are more concerned with satisfaction and professional fulfillment than with salary, with many saying that money always comes in second place. Despite that, salary still carries a lot of weight within the series of factors that keep workers motivated.

After all, it remains an important indicator of recognition and of how much a company is investing in an employee. For that reason, having a well-defined plan of roles and salaries, with good financial return, is important.

Besides that, offering incentives in the form of prizes, trips or even cash as a way of recognising performance, participation and goal achievement, or even as a way to stimulate employees to go beyond their daily routines and skills so as to develop the business as whole, has proven to be an efficient motivational resource.

5. Humanisation and flexibility

Understanding that employees have their own lives with countless challenges outside the company is the first step towards a humanised relationship between company and workforce.

Understanding this and offering a policy of flexibility, including of working hours, is a factor that shows the company’s compassion and concern with employees’ private lives. This helps establish a relationship of trust and commitment in the eyes of the employee.

6. Propose challenges

To increase productivity and gain good results, establishing goals for the workforce is essential. This helps outline the path that should be followed and ensures that results are in line with the company’s goals.

But launching extra challenges can be an important and very rewarding way to engage the workforce to act with more determination in pursuing and delivering results that can meet or even contribute to the wider challenges of the organisation.

Strategic approach to engagement

At a time when everything is happening incredibly fast, the market has become even more competitive and far more demanding. The human factor has proven to be a huge advantage to companies. Therefore, it is necessary to invest in human capital and in strategies to capture and retain the best talents, keeping them motivated and engaged to contribute with what they have that is most valuable: their knowledge.

Many managers forget (or simply do not think) that the knowledge of their workforce is one of the key assets of their organisations. In truth, they contain many of the secrets that make people, machines, processes and much more work.

The people on the front line of operations know exactly why something is difficult to sell, or why a certain piece of equipment is inefficient, and so forth.

The biggest asset of an organisation is the knowledge of the people within it. In this case, imagine the potential of launching challenges to your workforce that address your company’s strategic business goals, enabling each person to contribute with one or more ideas for solutions.

By rewarding the best ideas, the company establishes a democratic relationship of trust, collaboration and recognition, with high engagement potential and the commitment of its workforce.

An innovation management platform allows you to launch and manage your innovation challenges, capture ideas and select them for evaluation, and reward their authors by exchanging points for prizes through a gamification mechanism – all in a unique, centralised platform.

    Alexandre Conte da Nova, Head of Marketing at Exago
 

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