Sustaining high employee engagement
Question: It has always been a challenge for me to get my employees to have more compassion for the business in which we are trying so hard to thrive. Would you have any suggestions?
Answer: If you were to ask either ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot about ideas on how to sustain high employee engagement, their answers will invariably be broken down into the following seven strategies:
- Foster positive work culture by encouraging open communications while promoting a sense of purpose through the alignment of employees’ work with the company’s goals.
- Ensure work-life balance possibly through flexible work arrangements, respect for personal time and provision of wellness programs.
- Empower employees with autonomy by avoiding micromanagement, encouraging employees to take ownership of their work and generally trusting them with making decisions on their own.
- Recognize and reward efforts with both monetary and nonmonetary incentives; implement employee recognition programs.
- Create strong team relationships not just through team-building activities and social events but also through cross-departmental collaboration.
- Solicit employee feedback by welcoming employee inputs, either directly or via employee engagement surveys.
- Provide growth and development opportunities via continuous learning, which may come by way of workshops, mentorships and overall career development programs.
Needless to say, internal recruitment for higher positions and upskilling help.
I would just like to add another dimension—financially empower employees not only with fatter compensation benefits but with practical application of lessons on how to get and stay on the road to financial freedom. This way, employees get less distracted by personal finance issues and become more focused at work as well as at home.
Multitasking?
While Abraham Maslow never said that there is a hierarchy to the needs he identified in every individual (i.e. physiological, safety, belonging, esteem and self-actualization needs), it cannot be denied that the physiological needs, especially in relation to money or lack thereof, can be overwhelmingly distracting. Our limited human brain can focus only in the absence of distractions.
And how distracted can employees get? Oh, so very easily. Financial concerns can be as annoying as having a tiny pebble in your shoe. If you have not experienced this annoyance, try it now. It will not take long for you to be agitated enough to want to remove your shoe and shake out that pebble.
Many say that people can be trained to multitask. I do not argue with that. But can you really train a person to focus on two things at the same time? Multitasking is only possible because the activities are routine. Do not believe me?
Have a seat if you are not already seated. Lift your right leg. While your left leg is rotating, draw the number six in the air with your right hand.
Were you able to do it? You are probably laughing right now.
The human brain is not a computer because it still ends up focusing on one thing at a time. Money problems are so distracting that they demand attention and focus.
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group was quoted as saying, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” And, according to Dr. E Thomas Garman, founder of the Personal Finance Employee Education Foundation of the US, a great way to manifest such treatment for employees is to “…have them be better off financially when they leave you than when they started with you.”
So, be so bold as to empower your employees financially through the application of personal finance lessons.
The impact will come in the form of either one or a combination of the following:
- improved employee attendance and reduced tardiness;
- less reliance by employees on overtime pay;
- more value placed by employees on the nonmonetary component of their compensation;
- less stressful collective bargaining agreement negotiations;
- employees being better prepared for retirement; and
- an overall regard for the employer as being more supportive, caring, and compassionate; and higher employee engagement and “malasakit” for the company.
