Employee engagement is both a buzzword and a complex challenge for modern organizations. Organizations are increasingly focusing on employee engagement strategies to create a high-performing culture. This is for the simple reason that more organizations are now acknowledging the business benefits of high engagement.
However, despite the increased emphasis on employee engagement, the global employee engagement levels still remain dismal. As per Gallup, not more than 40 percent of the global workforce is engaged. This is where we need to ask an important question. Are organizations failing to find the best-fit strategies for driving engagement? Is there something they are missing out on?Â
Well, it is essential to note that in 2022, the corporate world has come a long way to seem a lot different than it was a few years ago. As a leader, you have new challenges to navigate in this revamped corporate world. Out of these challenges, employee engagement is something that you need to work on with immediate effect.
This blog highlights how employee engagement dynamics are a lot different from traditional times and how you can tackle the issue of employee disengagement in 2022 and beyond. So, let us engage with this blog to untangle the mystery of employee engagement.Â
Actionable strategies to drive higher engagement in 2022
Make onboarding experiences great
It makes complete sense to say that employees should show great engagement from the word go. However, it is also true that employees feel nervous and out of place when in their initial days in an organization. This is where the role of onboarding experiences comes into the picture.
When you offer great onboarding experiences to your employees, you can assist them in finding their comfort from an early state itself. When you will offer cordial support to them, they will respond with greater zeal and commitment to contribute in a positive way from the word go. Besides, if we look at the current workplace demographics, millennials and Gen Z employees are at the forefront of the modern corporate world.
For them, their comfort zone matters a lot to them and so does the working environment. Having said that, to facilitate high engagement in 2022, you need to create strong onboarding programs. Through these onboarding programs, you should try to blend new hires into the team in an organic way.
Moreover, even if your organization is working remotely, you need to create an impressive virtual onboarding program to foster strong connections from the very beginning. Needless to say, in a virtual workplace, the emotional or social disconnect is a major factor in disengagement. This explains why onboarding programs are far more significant in a virtual workplace.Â
Sometimes, a simple strategy can work wonders to engage a remote employee from the starting itself. For instance, you can introduce new employees to their team members and managers on the first day during a virtual coffee break where discussions are quite casual. This is one of the many ways in which you can win the comfort of a new employee.
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Cultivate a strong sense of belonging
As per Deloitte, a strong sense of workplace belonging can enhance job performance by 56 percent. Besides, the survey further states that workplace belonging can bring down absenteeism by 75 percent. Did you know that?
In case you did not know it earlier, now you do. When employees feel they belong in the organization and are valued, they feel a great spike in their motivation. An amazing thing that workplace belonging does is that it blurs the line between individual and organizational success.
To explain, when employees carry an enormous sense of belonging, they see their individual sense linked to the overall organizational success. They feel like contributing more and going the extra mile when they feel they belong in the workplace.
However, the real question is, how can you cultivate a strong sense of belonging in the workplace? For that, we have listed a few recommendations below.
Make the decision-making process more inclusiveÂ
Don’t just hire diversely but also embrace inclusion in a diverse workforceÂ
 Encourage your employees to share their opinions, ideas, and perspectivesÂ
Hold open discussions with your employeesÂ
Back your employees to take initiative during employee engagement activities
Offer personalized employee rewards
There is nothing new about the fact that employee recognition and rewards hold the key to higher engagement. This is something that organizations have known for a long time. In fact, today, most organizations have thoughtful employee recognition rewards. However, organizations have still not been much successful in driving the desired engagement and employee retention.
Does this hint at the fact that most employee recognition programs have failed? To some extent, yes, it could be the reason. Is there a way out? Well, there surely is a way out. Rather than offering random rewards to your employees, it is better to give them rewards they will love. After all, the more they love their rewards the higher will be their engagement.Â
To put it in simple terms, we are talking about personalized rewards that can deliver on the personal interests of your employees. To cite an example, if an employee loves to binge-watch, you can offer them a Netflix subscription as a reward. Similarly, if an employee is obsessed with watches or gadgets, you can give them a smartwatch instead.
In this way, with personalized rewards, you can blend empathy into employee appreciation. To explain, personalized rewards will give employees the impression that you understand them and their choices. However, figuring out which rewards inspire your workers the most can be challenging. This is where you will need people analytics to have a data-driven approach for determining the best fit.
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Use social media for appreciation
Appreciation does not always need to be in the form of a tangible reward. For most employees, even verbal recognition and appreciation can make such a great difference to their morale. In fact, for small businesses, costly rewards may not always be feasible. This is where you can use the power of social media to appreciate your employees.
Social media shoutouts highlighting the key achievements of your employees through the official social media handles of the company will make your employees feel honored. Being recognized on a platform where uncountable people can see their achievements will mean the world to them.
Besides, employees can flaunt their appreciation posts on their personal social media handles and tell their near and dear ones about it. In the ultimate sense, you will be able to capture their motivation and allegiance in a great way. As you can see, social media can do incredible things for your organization.
Create strong feedback mechanisms
As per HubSpot, 98 percent of employees will struggle to remain engaged if they do not receive regular feedback from their superiors. Also, it further reveals that highly engaged employees receive feedback on a weekly basis.Â
These insights clearly establish that there is a deep connection between feedback sharing and employee engagement. Also, millennials and Gen Z employees want feedback sharing to be more continuous. They view feedback as an essential part of their learning and development.Â
Having said that, you need to introduce regular feedback-sharing mechanisms as a part of effective performance management. For that, you can invest in effective performance management tools to make feedback sharing more frequent. In this way, you can optimize engagement in an incredible way.Â
Provide burnout assistance
As the contemporary corporate world progresses further in a smooth way, the instances of employee burnout are also on the rise. As per Gallup, more than 50 percent of employees experienced burnout situations in 2021. Furthermore, if you are a remote organization, your employees are far more vulnerable to burnout due to the lack of social interactions.
The bottom line is that high burnout rates and high engagement levels cannot co-exist in the workplace. If you need to maintain engagement levels in 2022, it is essential for you to offer effective burnout assistance to your employees.
You can offer them greater flexibility to achieve a healthier work-life balance. After all, flexibility is the cornerstone of engagement and retention strategies in this era of great resignation. Moreover, you can also conduct regular sessions on mental wellness, stress management, and positive affirmations to help your employees in preventing burnout. Even if your organization is working in remote mode, these sessions can take the form of webinars.Â
Supporting your employees' mental wellness means much more than helping them to keep burnout at bay. It also signifies that you are an empathetic employer who cares for your employees. Besides promoting mental wellness, such initiatives will also promote higher trust and allegiance in the workplace. In the ultimate sense, all these factors will add to employee engagement in the workplace.
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Introduce leadership opportunities
Career advancement is a major determinant of employee engagement. When employees are at the receiving end of advancement opportunities, it brings great satisfaction to them. They feel that the company has valued their efforts and has rewarded them with greater entitlements.
Especially in the case of millennials and Gen Z employees, career advancement is a key priority. As per Monster, 72 percent of millennials state that career development is of utmost importance. Having said that, as a leader, you need to offer greater advancement opportunities to your employees.
You can do that by promoting more leadership opportunities in the workplace. The leadership opportunities may not always be in the form of promotions. You can also encourage leadership traits and opportunities among your employees in other contexts. For instance, you can ask a deserving employee to lead a presentation or to lead the planning of the company’s annual party.
The fact of the matter is that even the smallest leadership role will empower your employees. The more you assist them in advancing further in their careers the higher will be the engagement. This is where you need to innovate and improvise to offer ample leadership opportunities to your employees.Â
To encapsulate, the employee engagement scenarios are a lot different in 2022 than they were a few years ago. This explains why traditional employee engagement strategies are no longer relevant in the modern workplace. Today, in line with the changing workplace dynamics and demographics, you need a new spectrum of engagement strategies to get the best out of your employees.