How can you improve the engagement of your team members?

From what I’ve seen, organizations try to do everything they can to keep employees from searching for the next employer. For example, they roll out all sorts of financial incentive programs, offer attractive benefit packages, move to nice offices, introduce fruit days to try to keep their employees engaged and make them more productive. 

But do these “carrot and stick” really work? Do they actually attract and keep the top performers? 

We must face the hard truth: the mainstream approaches failed to improve engagement and performance. Gallup has reported in 2023 that only 23% of the employees were actively engaged globally. I am not sure of your standards, but I would not consider this a high number.  We might raise a question: how much is it really important to employees whether the company offers daycare, allows personal use of the internet or provides free coffee? Not that these initiatives are invaluable, but data show that they won’t take you far on the engagement scale. Anyway, if these perks are inefficient, are there dominant drivers behind employee engagement? In fact, Gallup’s research shows that 70% of employee engagement is determined solely by the manager. This means that the relationship between an employee and their manager is the single most significant factor influencing employee satisfaction, performance, and overall engagement. It may explain the low impact of providing a gym in the basement, organizing family days or offering stock options. They might drive the remaining 30%. 

You may argue that (internal or external) surveys show that employees like and prefer these options. I do not doubt it. They may like it, but they do not make them more engaged! The best chance to improve employee engagement is having better people managers. And we make the problem even worse: most of the universal benefits companies provide to employees are not under the direct control of the manager—or at least she has marginal influence on them—, practically they can’t do much about them. 

If you are a people manager and you feel that HR support is insufficient to do your job better you can try to excel in four key areas which you have direct control of: hiring team members, setting clear expectations, motivation, and development. 

1. Acquiring the right people
   Start by defining the expectations for the role you’re hiring for. Study the top performers in similar roles to understand what drives their success. Pay attention to their natural talents, behaviour patterns, and fit to the team—these are often the best contributors to high performance.
2. Set clear and measurable goals
   Make your expectations crystal clear. The best is to align your approach with the metrics your company uses to execute its strategy. Together with your team members align these outcomes to their strengths to draw their natural talents to make positive and lasting change in their job responsibilities while challenging them to use their talents in new ways. The goals should be: specific, measurable, achievable, mutually beneficial for the company and the individual, and time-bound. 
3. Motivate to improve performance
   Your team members might be more motivated at a time and less motivated at another. They may need your encouragement and support to stay engaged and make substantial progress. Try to figure out e.g. how do they prefer to be recognized? What factors motivate them to grow and achieve more? How can you individualize your approach recognizing them?
4. Develop along the way
   Ideally there is a gap between the goals and the capabilities of the team members, so it is important to focus on personal development. Help them to bridge the gap by developing their talents into strengths. You may ask your team members what skills they’d like to develop or what areas they want to improve in. You can help them find the right tasks, jobs, and career paths and create a sense of ownership and engagement in their growth.