If you’re unsure of whether or not your company needs an employee engagement program, below are seven signs that your company may need one.
As a manager, do you ever feel like something is off within your organization? You’re starting to notice that your employees seem unsettled (or distant), and they don’t seem as interested in their work as they once were. This is a common challenge and many of our clients were unsure of how they should address these issues.
1. Employees are showing up just to show up
You’re noticing that some of your people don’t seem to have the same level of passion for their work as they used to. Johnny, from marketing, isn’t enthusiastic about his work anymore and is simply showing up to show up. They work their hours from 9-5 each day but seem to clock out as soon as they can. Even worse, you feel like you’re not getting as much out of your people as what they’re capable of.
2. Leadership at the company feels disconnected from your employees
Often times communication can get lost in translation between executives and front-line employees, which can frustrate and disengage your people. As a manager, you know that you should have a good instinct for what is going on with your team, but as you grow it can become a struggle to maintain a real pulse. A recent study showed that when employees feel a connection with their managers and leaders that the quality of their work, and their productivity, improve.
3. You sense a culture of entitlement
Your workplace should empower your employees to take action towards their own goals and towards the goals of the company. Employees with a sense of entitlement don’t see it that way – they feel as if the company owes them. Entitled employees prioritize their own individual needs before the needs of the company. If you start to notice misalignment between your employees’ intentions, you may have a problem.
4. It feels like things just used to be better
If it seems like your company has reached a plateau, something’s off. Employees used to actually show up to your happy hours and teams would organically coordinate their own social events. From a job standpoint, you notice that work used to be a bigger part of employee lives, and it was evident in their output. It could be that great coworkers may have left, development opportunities have disappeared, perhaps the culture used to be stronger, or maybe it was just easier to get done. Everyone agrees that their jobs used to be better.
5. Teams aren’t communicating with one another
The Product team feels like Sales is overselling. The Sales team feels that the Client Success team won’t give access to key customer relationships. Client Success feels like they aren’t getting support from the Product team. These are the telltale signs that communication silos are emerging. Companies with “silo” mentalities tend to have a lack of information flow — communication and collaboration issues result in inefficiencies and a loss of productivity. When employees are deeply ingrained within their teams, their priorities become misaligned and the benefits of the company fall short to their own.
6. Employees feel like they can never get anything across the finish line
If you efficiently communicate workplace priorities with your employees, the employees tend to perform better than they would have had you not made organization goals and priorities clear. This can be done by showing your employees what their work is doing to impact the overall company goals. When there is transparency, employees will be able to see exactly how their works is affecting the company, and thus feel more inclined to increase their discretionary effort.
7. Your talented employees are leaving and you don’t know why
Your best employees are leaving and you don’t know why. It’s unclear if it’s due to misaligned career paths, them not feeling challenged or engaged with their work or if it’s due to other outside factors. This feeling of being left in the dark can be alarming and detrimental when the top talent at your company is leaving at a rate faster than you can keep up with. Often times, great employees are stuck doing what they are good at, but with no upward mobility. Great employees want to be challenged and engaged. If they can’t find that at your company, they’ll look elsewhere.
Building an employee engagement program may seem daunting, but after it’s implemented, you’ll be glad you made the investment.