The secret of employee engagement (part 2)

This is part two of our three-part series on improving employee engagement. Click here to start from the beginning.—Ed.

You don’t need a training budget or a formal training program to help employees gain new knowledge and learn new skills. The best learning often happens on the job, and studies show that some of the most engaged and successful employees are those who are encouraged to grow and are involved in key decisions.

As I wrote about in part 1, a great way to encourage employee growth and development is to conduct “stay interviews” with each employee so you can help them grow. These are a great way to find out what they’re interested in and figure out ways to integrate their interests into their current roles. You should also think about delegating tasks. Involving your employees in special projects, task forces, or committees is a highly effective way to help them grow into new roles. Providing insight on online training is another way and you shouldn’t be shy about asking them for ideas as well.

Another way to encourage employee growth is to simply make a commitment to step away from your desk during each day to observe, interact with, and learn more about what they’re doing or what challenges they might be facing in their current roles. Taking just a little bit of time to provide feedback helps them understand what they need to do to fine-tune their performance. It also helps you identify better ways to support them and remove obstacles so they can better perform their jobs. Employees want to do a good job and grow, but they can’t do it on their own. As all the great athletes know, feedback is the breakfast of champions!

And last but not least, share business-related articles with your team. Create opportunities for them to discuss and look for ways to apply what they learn to improve their current role.

Do these three things and you’ll be amazed at what your people can do.

How engaged is your team? Are you asking the right questions? Giving the right feedback? Helping them learn and grow?

We can help.