Why Employee Engagement is Essential to Your Morale and Culture – and How To Encourage It

Now more than ever, organizations and leaders are looking for ways to attract and retain top performers by increasing employee productivity and morale. As a recent Gallup poll has found, employee disengagement levels have never been higher.

Over 50% of workers surveyed indicated they feel unattached to their company and, while they put time into their work, they do so without passion or interest. They're also on the lookout for better opportunities and will leave for a better offer without worry.

Out of those respondents, the majority of them also indicated that employee engagement efforts at their company were not present or not accessible. Given this, how can a company's culture of employee engagement contribute to retention and morale?

The Impacts of High Engagement

According to the Gallup poll, employees define engagement as feeling clear about their roles and having opportunities to do what they feel they excel at. Having access to development opportunities at work and enjoying strong relationships with coworkers and team leaders are also noted factors.

Gallup also reports that organizations that focus on creating high-development cultures are most likely to see increased engagement rates. If employees can see their impact on the organization and its clients through their work, they are more likely to remain engaged with their work and company.

So how can your organization foster a high-engagement culture that encourages employee retention and boosts morale? We've identified three core ways.

Start From the Top

Employees are not going to rally behind an organization whose purpose and brand are not well-defined. Everyone wants to know that they're making a difference – and how they are doing so. The responsibility to convey this falls to company leaders.

Leaders should actively model for lower-level management the expectations that come along with building solid employee engagement strategies. This can take many forms: consistent communication about the company vision or regular check-in meetings where leaders speak to employees one-on-one. The important part is showing that the organization chooses to prioritize employee understanding of their shared mission, which goes a long way in ensuring engaged teams.

Encourage Consistent Management Training

"The way we've always done it" is not a valid reason for continuing to uphold the same standards and methods of management and manager training. By encouraging and empowering managers to train one another in the ways that best suit their individual and team needs, you're enabling and encouraging them to own the trajectory their work will take moving forward. And, by encouraging that ownership, you are also encouraging them to buy into your shared mission rather than blindly following training guidelines.

Organizations should also encourage regular management training that focuses on coaching managers in the various areas they may be deficient or interested in. If a manager struggles to lead a team across the finish line, company leadership may coach that manager accordingly. However, if managers have identified a management style that produces results, their coaching can focus more on professional growth and development. The ultimate goal should be to encourage managers to own their teams and prioritize finding better, more efficient ways to lead and grow.

Maintain a Culture of Accountability

The fastest way to fight passivity is with accountability. If your company's culture is one of holding people accountable for low and high performance, you're already on the right track to solidifying a company culture that encourages high engagement. Because accountability requires that managers and teams be active participants, that culture is counterintuitive to disengagement. After all, how can you work on a team that expects transparency and communication and be checked out? It's impossible!

Gallup reports that companies with the highest engagement levels approach employee engagement and recognition as a way to develop and encourage employees to reach new levels of success. Rather than only requiring accountability for what went wrong, they also prioritize celebrating what went right. Doing this is another way to signal company values.

The percentage of engaged employees nationwide is still far too low, but your organization doesn't have to reflect that. By prioritizing initiatives that encourage engagement and ownership of your mission and goals, you will be able to solidify teams who value the work you do.