Enhancing the Employee Engagement Strategies For A Diverse Workforce

Enterprises have a great channel of vendors, freelancers, and workforce scattered globally. These are unique demographic groups as individuals have their own meaning of life, their own version of the roles towards the enterprise, their own set of motivational fundamentals, personal KPI boxes, and bucket lists which they secretly keep ticking as they go about building their employer’s business. With these diverse groups, workplaces where women represent 48 percent of the workforce, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), it has become crucially important for employers to support, motivate and understand this diverse group of workforce. For employers, it’s important to continue supporting diversity. As per McKinsey’s research report, 67 percent of job seekers prefer a diverse workforce. For a diverse workforce today, the enterprise needs to customize its motivation strategy accordingly.

Appreciation is key to motivation‍

Monetary benefits and other financial incentives aren’t the only things that employees are looking for from the company. Job recognition and rewards equally impact employee engagement and performance.

Introducing peer-to-peer recognition among co-workers can have a long-term impact on employee work engagement and job satisfaction. Achieving recognitions such as “Employee of the Month” and “top performer” offer satisfaction to employees.

As per the research, nearly 70% of employees confided that they would involve themselves more at work if better appreciated.

ROI on Recognition and Engagement

Employee engagement represents the level of commitment employees feel toward their employers and their jobs. Employees get motivated and perform highly with a higher level of engagement.

See what Gallup’s poll about recognition and engagement tells:

• When one focuses on the strengths of the team, the disengagement ratio reduces to 1 percent.
• When one focuses on the weaknesses of the team, the disengagement ratio increases to 22 percent.
• When one ignores team effort, the disengagement ratio increases to 40 percent.
• With employee recognition programs and proper guidance through e-learning and employee training, employee productivity increases by 63 percent increase.

Getting recognition at work and having a sense of belonging is vital for a positive work environment. When you recruit passionate employees with a positive attitude and empower them to meet all these needs by fostering a culture of employee recognition and engagement, you’ll greatly improve your company culture.

Carve out career paths and provide opportunities for growth

94% of employees say they’d stay with their company for long if their company thought about their future and career. Giving employees opportunities and writing training to develop their skills for a better future helps to keep employees interested and engaged in company work. Employee learning and development initiatives demonstrate that the company values their employees as individuals and looks for better ROI in people, rather than replacing employees with candidates that have the skills they desire but again need the same training and motivation.

Promote transparency within the organization

Updating employees with current company achievements, future goals, company news, and events will create transparency within the organization. This will help develop employee trust in the organization. On the contrary, if employees get the sense that they’re intentionally being left out of the loop, they may start to distrust management and lose confidence in leadership.

Employee Feedback – 2-way communication in an organization

A platform where employees can share their thoughts and ask questions to the right people and get a response from them on the go. Uploading new project strategies and taking the team’s feedback on the same gives a sense of importance to the employees. It demonstrates that their feedback matters.

Last but not least…

It is vital to be humans in the use of the digital world to ensure employees are engaged and emerge stronger, smarter, and swifter post this global pandemic. There is so much that digital transformation can provide with economical and innovative engagement solutions. Leverage this time to connect with your teams, offer employee training, communicate consistently, and build a bond that strengthens at the end of the global crisis.