The Tribune

What every company wants from its staff is employee engagement: An individual sense of purpose and focused energy, evident to others in their display of personal initiative, effort and persistence directed towards achieving company goals.

Many employees pretend to be busy all day long, sometimes working long hours and moving fast around the office, but having little to no impact on company output and productivity. The engaged worker, however, has a clear focus on the company’s objectives and is constantly pursuing their accomplishments. Everyone understands that greater employee engagement means higher work performance and company loyalty.

While we understand that the goal is to maintain high work performance standards, and to create a greater sense of company loyalty, questions remain over how best to foster this? There is no short or easy answer, and for many years companies (public and private) have failed in motivating employees to fully expend their energy towards achieving business goals.

Nevertheless, here we provide five answers to the sometimes complex issue of keeping employees engaged and productive.

• Training must play a major role in fostering more engaged workers. An orientation programme and soft skills training play a vital role in reminding employees of their purpose in the company. A strong emphasis on the vision, mission, values, objectives and soft skills required is crucial to on-boarding new staff while encouraging existing ones to remaining focused on the goals.

• A dynamic and progressive work environment, where objectives are being achieved and the company is making positive strides, also keeps employees engaged and productive. When employees sense that there are no levels of accountability, or that they have minimal opportunities for advancement, they will check out and become less productive.

• Ownership: Employers need always to keep in the employees’s view the “what’s in it for me” answers. When an employee sees the stake they have in the business, and that their levels of productivity and engagement affect the bottom line and their ability to earn, it becomes a less challenging task to keep them focused.

• The environment that employees are expected to work in determines the level of interest and engagement. If companies strive to build a relaxed family environment where there is mutual respect and open communication, employees tend to remain engaged. When lines are crossed and trust is broken, people remain for the salary and benefits, making as little contribution as possible.

• Research has long indicated that incentives matter. What rewards and recognition programmes have you implemented that work in motivating your employees to produce their best work? If your employees receive the same salary or wage despite their levels of work and responsibilities, chances are you will get less value from them.

Tangible and intangible tokens help to prod employees to deliver more. Evaluate positive reinforcement versus reprimands. If you have more letters of warning than those of commendation, perhaps your system or mindset needs some readjustment.

• NB: Ian R Ferguson is a talent management and organisational development consultant, having completed graduate studies with regional and international universities. He has served organsations, both locally and globally, providing relevant solutions to their business growth and development issues. He may be contacted at iferguson@bahamas.com.