3 Questions to Increase Employee Engagement

Regularly meeting with each of your team members is essential to help understand what’s going on at the job site, communicate your expectations, and steer the ship towards meeting organizational goals and objectives.  However, many managers struggle to lead effective meetings with employees.  Instead of focusing on creating an itemized agenda and reviewing detailed statistics at every meeting, try using these three simple questions to increase employee engagement.

What is employee engagement?

Employee satisfaction is an indicator of how well employees enjoy working for you and your company.  It’s not unlike your “5-star” rating for your experience eating at your favorite restaurant.

On the other hand, employee engagement measures the level of passion employees have about their work in your company.  It measures how committed they feel to the mission, vision, and values.  It shows how likely they are to going “above and beyond” expectations without being asked to.

Highly engaged teams:

1. Are absent from work 41% less,
2. Are 17% more productive,
3. Earn 10% higher satisfaction ratings from customers, and
4. Achieve 20% sales.

As a result, organizations with highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable.

Three simple questions that increase employee engagement:

Employees are more engaged when they feel their manager is a supportive partner in their success.  These questions show they care and uncover information to help managers provide better support.

1. What could you use more of or less of to be more effective in meeting your work goals?  Employees often have a wide variety of ideas (some feasible and some not) and just need an open invitation to feel free to ask.  Some employees might need more training, some might need updated computers with more modern software, and others might need different working hours to balance work and home demands.  This question is an opportunity for you to discover what needs to change at the job site to help employees perform better.
2. What can I do differently to help you be better at your job?  This question reflects your desire to be a partner in your employee’s success.  Before you ask it, you should take a deep breath and be prepared for some honest feedback.  You could hear anything from “It would help me if you’d stop using my mistakes as examples in our team meetings” to “It’s hard for me to understand written directions, so it would help if you could walk me through new processes in person.”  It’s important to acknowledge the employee’s bravery and then follow up by trying to make the change they need.
3. What is something you’re proud of that you would like to share with me?  People typically don’t feel comfortable showing off their successes.  By asking this question, you’re building rapport with your team member and creating a moment to show your support.  Employees could share anything–from being proud of a big sale to feeling ecstatic about their child making the softball team.  Regardless, you’ll learn something new about your employee, and they will love that you’re interested.

At Paradux Media Group, we only achieve success when our clients meet and exceed their goals.  Our team focuses on more than just building isolated advertising campaigns. Instead, we work with our clients from building strategy, to implementing multi-faceted marketing plans, to discovering new ways to achieve profitability.  Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you reach your goals.