Ask leaders what’s most important for a successful business and many of them will point to a single critical factor: employee engagement. Once a team is “all in,” any business is far more likely to thrive.
Yet even as leaders recognize its importance, actual engagement remains disarmingly low. According to the latest data from Gallup, just 32% of full- and part-time U.S. employees are engaged at work, while 18% are actively disengaged. All those disengaged employees cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, according to Gallup's 2022 report on the state of the global workplace. That’s equal to 11% of global GDP.
Why does all the concern over engagement not result in a boost in employees feeling motivated and excited about their work? In large part, it’s because organizations often don’t develop thoughtful and strategic engagement plans that reflect the actual needs of their employees.
In our work with scores of clients from top companies, we’ve learned a lot about the types of engagement plans that win and those that fall short. Through this blog, we’ll walk you through the six key steps for success and share details on other critical factors to consider as you craft a winning plan.
An employee engagement plan is a tool for leaders to enhance or transform employee engagement, which is essentially the emotional connection employees have with their work. Like all successful business plans, employee engagement plans should spell out specific desired business outcomes.
The best employee engagement plans lead to a myriad of behaviors that engaged employees demonstrate, such as a sense of excitement about coming to work and a feeling that the work is meaningful and interesting.
Employee engagement plans should be updated or tweaked every year to support the business strategy, rather than on an ad hoc basis or as an afterthought. When a plan is truly strategic, it is also given the appropriate priority and resources to have a real and lasting impact.
The most obvious and tangible result of an effective employee engagement plan is that it helps to transform the company culture. When people are excited about the work they do, appreciate the colleagues they work for, and feel protected and respected, they are naturally more productive. This is why so often engagement is directly tied to key business outcomes.
Engagement often results in employees feeling compelled to give something extra – extra time, extra energy, extra brainpower. Employees go above and beyond with discretionary effort because they’re motivated to do so.
Research has consistently shown that engaged teams do better on several key performance measures. Gallup’s latest employee engagement research found that business units and teams scoring in the top quartile in engagement had the following impressive differences in business outcomes when compared to the lowest quartile group:
Further, recent studies have found that when employees are involved in decision-making, employees tend to be more innovative and engaged.
In the Deloitte 2023 Global Human Capital Trends survey, organizations with higher worker involvement in designing and implementing organizational change were more likely to experience positive outcomes.
Specifically, organizational leaders who said they co-create with their workers stated they were 1.8x more likely to have a highly engaged workforce, 2x more likely to be innovative, and 1.6x more likely than their peers to anticipate and respond to change effectively.
There are multiple ways to craft an effective employee engagement plan, but it’s important to keep in mind some tried and true practices for making engagement an integral part of your overall strategies and goals.
A strong employee engagement plan should never simply list a set of tactics. Rather, the tactics should be incorporated into the overall plan and reflect the vision you have for the organization and the kind of work environment you want to build.
Communication needs to be a key component of the engagement plan, which means that it’s critical to have both human resources and communication leaders collaborating on the design and roll out of the plan.
As you dive into your strategic planning, consider the key components of any strong business strategy for employee engagement:
The difference between a strategy on paper and a winning employee engagement strategy that accelerates performance is how well leaders bring their teams along on the journey.
It’s not enough to be the leader’s strategy… it has to be the team’s strategy, too. And the only way to make it the team’s strategy is to let them be a part of your plan to elevate engagement.
Often communication leaders are great at informing teams, flooding them with emails, videos, social media, charts, newsletters, strategy wheels, and meetings. Yet, great strategy activation and communication are marked by three key elements: involve, inform, and inspire employees, so they want to help you make it happen and achieve the results.
We can all relate to how much better it feels to be part of something rather than having something pushed on you out of the blue without understanding the why or story behind it. That’s why it’s essential to involve those closest to the challenges and opportunities with engagement, such as HR and other people leaders, and employee ambassadors.
Listen and learn from them and help them feel heard. Test strategies and approaches to see how they react. Ask them what they think is needed to propel the business. When you do, they’ll bring forward great ideas and solutions, give more to execute, and you’ll go further faster, together.
We can’t underestimate how essential it is to define the destination. Help employees see why the journey to better engagement is a good idea for the company, for customers, and for them as individuals. Be sure to share the “how” – of both priorities and focus areas – to get to the destination and what you expect of employees. Help them know their role in reaching the destination, so they know how they fit in and what success looks like.
Finally, answer the “what’s in it for me” question that employees ask. They need to know that the destination will be beneficial for them as well as the company and customers.
It’s really important to first start with an analysis of the current level of engagement among your employees. How excited and motivated is your team about their work today? What’s working well and not so well? What do employees say they want and need from the organization to be more excited about their work?
There are many ways to go about getting a pulse on employee sentiments. A survey of a sample of employees or a larger group (when that’s feasible) is one great way to start. If your human resources group already has an annual employee survey, the communications team should engage with them to ensure the right kinds of questions are asked, those that get at the heart of employee satisfaction and motivation. You can also use other great options as supplemental sources of information, such as focus groups with a select group of employees or leaders. It’s also critical for HR and communications to work in tandem on gauging the level of engagement and trends in engagement in recent years.
Another key source of data is the retention levels of employees. If you’re seeing a spike in turnover, that’s often a big clue that job satisfaction is declining. Consult with HR leaders for details on exit interview information. If your organization is not currently conducting formal exit interviews, be sure to begin doing so.
Once you’ve collected the feedback from leaders and employees, you’re ready to identify the key areas of opportunity for improvement.
We spend a good amount of time talking with our clients and leaders we work with about “desired outcomes” – the first step in planning any kind of new program or communication.
When we ask, “What’s the outcome you seek?” in regard to engagement, sometimes clients will say, “We want to produce more leader email messages on engagement, or we’re thinking about a newsletter or video.”
We always caution teams when they answer this way because those are just the tactics. What they really need to start with is the answer to this simple question: What do you want to achieve in terms of employee engagement? What are the tangible things you want your employees to know, feel, and do that would reflect a higher level of engagement?
Once you know that, you can then decide what plan and communication tactic is best suited to achieve that business goal.
Here’s the two-step process we suggest you walk through to identify your critical outcomes:
Consider using a template like this (below) to define what you want all employees to know, feel, and do as a result of your communication. It’s a great way to stay focused on the key audiences and outcomes you want to achieve.
You don’t need to limit yourself to one desired outcome, but you should try to cap it at three.
Note: All too often business and communication plans only focus on communication goals. Remember to take your plan to the next level by linking the communication goals to specific business or organizational goals.
Here’s an example of a template you might use to help describe the current state of engagement and the future state that you are working toward:
From
To
Know
There’s little connection to the work I do and the overall business goals of my organization.
There is only limited collaboration across business units here.
I’m part of a team here.
There is effective collaboration across work teams here.
Feel
I often think about looking for a job with another company.
I don’t feel my ideas and suggestions matter.
My current job is great. I’m not interested in working for another company.
My company cares about how I feel and wants to increase my overall job satisfaction.
Do
Don’t share ideas with leaders because it’s a waste of time.
Leave early or right on time every day because any extra contributions aren’t recognized or appreciated.
Participate in group discussions about what’s working well and what could be better inside the organization.
Take the time to help my colleagues when they need it because I know they would do the same for me.
Based on your audiences, next outline the most important components of your plan and the messages you want to communicate to them.
Remember to keep it to about three main messages (that’s usually all that people can retain!). Then consider supporting points to reinforce those key messages.
Consider incorporating the critical facts, anecdotes, and stories that support your plan and help the audience see how you plan to transform engagement within the organization.
Want to ensure you don’t forget a critical detail in your communications? Think 5 Ws and an H to ensure you’re not missing an important detail, sharing the all-important context, and making it relevant for your audience.
In communicating your messages, the order is important. Adult learners want to know the “why” first and then the “what.” The rest can follow logically.
No matter how you develop your messages, be sure to use a template to keep yourself organized, consistent, and concise. For example, we use our award-winning messagemap methodology to get all the most important messages organized and prioritized on one page.
Once you’ve solidified the messages, look at the best ways to launch and regularly communicate with employees about the new initiative. You may use existing channels or create new ones.
Keep in mind that feedback channels about the launch and ongoing implementation can be informal – such as leaders “managing by walking around” or supervisors asking for input.
Alternatively, the communication can be more formal communication opportunities, where employees are invited to share ideas and questions via print, online publications, or social media. When determining which channels work best, consider employees’ time, commitment, availability, and access to technology. Be sure that employees can share feedback during and after work hours.
Remember that no engagement plan should ever be considered final. You can’t just launch it and hope it will naturally stick. Instead, employees need regular communication about the initiative and repeated opportunities to share their feedback about what’s working well and what needs improvement.
Having a full view of the variety of communication channels and tactics used to implement your plan (and timing to go along with it) will be most effective when you have a project tracker to work from.
Look at the year ahead and note which communication will be happening when. That will help ensure you have a consistent cadence of communication about the new engagement plan, which will contribute to a more informed, involved workforce.
Use a template like this to map out your action plan (adding as many rows as you need):
Vehicle / Deliverable
Owner / Sender
Timing
Notes
Status
