Poor onboarding.

Engagement starts the moment your organization begins recruiting a prospective employee and continues through the job offer and an employee’s first year. Ensure a positive onboarding experience with:

• Smooth IT onboarding.
• Structured activities, especially during a new employee’s first week, including meetings with leadership, coworkers and members of other key departments.
• The assigning of a mentor who can serve as a resource in those initial days.
• Regular check-ins for at least 90 days up to a year.

Infrequent or ineffective feedback mechanisms.

When employees don’t feel heard by leaders and managers, engagement can suffer. Offer regular ways to deliver anonymous feedback through pulse surveys, engagement surveys, and other feedback tools. Be sure to check out our tip sheet that covers four steps to ensure employees feel valued and heard.

Lack of career development opportunities.

Having well-defined career paths and robust learning and development opportunities can significantly boost engagement and increase retention by giving employees a clear vision of their future—particularly for younger employees.

Reactive rather than proactive culture management.

Sometimes HR departments can simply “put out fires” rather than acting as architects of organizational culture. This means addressing cultural issues before they’ve escalated into visible problems—like working to prevent turnover versus responding to high turnover rates. Proactive culture management includes regular culture assessments, feedback loops, and the promotion of desired organizational behaviors and values.

Lack of recognition.

When employees are recognized for their hard work they feel motivated and engaged. Employee recognition platforms like TINYpulse, which allow employers to offer a range of recognition awards and encourage employees to recognize peers, can enhance engagement.

Inadequate manager training.

Offer managers training in best practices like showing empathy, communicating regularly about the company’s mission and business performance, offering feedback, recognizing contributions, modeling healthy behaviors, and helping employees find meaning and purpose in their work.

Poor communication.

Employees who don’t understand how their work connects to larger organizational objectives or, worse, what their job expectations are, may become disengaged. Ensure managers understand the importance of holding regular one-on-ones with employees. Urge leaders to frequently communicate business goals and performance during town halls.

Neglecting work-life balance.

Organizations who focus solely on productivity metrics while ignoring work-life balance run the risk of poor engagement and, if unchecked, employee burnout. Offer employees a degree of flexibility in when and where work gets done so they can better manage personal and professional responsibilities.

One-size-fits-all benefits packages.

Benefits packages that fail to recognize the diverse needs of today’s multi-generational workforce can impact engagement. Offer ways for employees to “shop” for the benefits and programs that make the most sense for them; give access to “lifestyle savings accounts” that let employees devote dollars to the well-being activities of their choice; offer life stage-specific benefits (for example, student loan repayment programs, caregiver support or retirement planning benefits).

By avoiding these 9 common pitfalls, HR departments can directly influence employee engagement resulting in a measurable impact on the business. Request a demo to learn more about how TINYpulse by WebMD Health Services can help you increase employee engagement in your organization and ensure your employees feel valued and heard.