Running head: PLANNING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT 1

Planning Employee Engagement

Jose Novelli

Walden University

Planning Employee Engagement

Planning Employee Engagement

Leadership in an organization can do many things in increase employee engagement,

retention, and overall productivity. Through Human Resource (HR) maintaining a pulse on

employee satisfaction and happiness, management can take action to ensure that all employees

are happy, productive workers, who contribute to the organization’s overall mission. There are

five key strategies that can help improve employee retention, engagement, and productivity.

These strategies are working environment, rewards and recognition, involving the workforce,

training, and constant job evaluation and satisfaction.

The work environment of an organization needs to meet and address the employees’ needs.

This can be providing snacks, child care, napping area, or anything else your employees feel

strongly about. One needs to know what your employees hold most dear. The work environment

should be a dynamic, changing environment that adapts to the needs of the employees.

Rewarding and recognizing employees can help motivate employees. Mark Twain once said,

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.” (Bersin, J. 2014). These rewards can be

monetary or it can be recognition. The best rewards tend to be motivational and not so much

monetary. By management stepping up to recognize an employee, it highlights exemplary work

ethics and motivates others to follow.

Getting employees involved in the workings of an organization helps to allow new ideas and

gives employees the voice they need to feel important. Employees need to do more than show up

to their employment. They need to be engaged and willing to give it their all. By listening to

suggestions, comments, and concerns, it gives the employees a say in their working environment.

Management does not need to act on every suggestion or concern. It helps to give the

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Planning Employee Engagement

management a pulse of the overall contentment of the employees, while giving new ideas and

new perspectives.

Investing in the human capital through training and increasing the upward mobility of

employees, helps all employees strive to be their best. By spending the time and resources to

properly train employees, it reduces the amount of supervision employees need and helps the

company promote from within. This reduces the turnover of employees and helps all employees

feel they are working towards the mission of the company by using their skills and expertise. As

stated by Gregory Smith, “Employees who understand the business, complain less, are more

satisfied, and are more motivated. All this leads to better management-employee relationships”

(Smith, G. 2015). This is the goal that management strives for. So the investments in human

capital will help create a work climate that helps all employees meet their potential.

Management needs to evaluate employees’ satisfaction and contentment on an ongoing basis.

This needs to be done frequently and with target areas in mind. By using surveys and other

evaluation tools, it allows management to target areas of concern, measure growth, and help

develop solutions for long term goals. The goal is to create a work culture where employees that

value their positions, feel they are working up to their potential, and are willing to go above and

beyond for the welfare of the company. Frequent evaluations and surveys help give management

progress indicators to keep all the other strategies on track.

Conclusion

All in all, there are many strategies that management can help improve employee retention,

engagement, and productivity. By ensuring that management provides working environment that

meets the employees needs, rewards and recognition to help employees strive to be the best,

involving the workforce to share ideas and be part of a worthwhile organization, training to help

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Planning Employee Engagement

each employee live up to their potential, and constant job evaluation and satisfaction to monitor

the successfulness of the other strategies, it is a recipe for success.

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Planning Employee Engagement

References

Bersin, J. (2014). Time to Rethink The Employee Engagement Issues. Forbes.com. Retrieved on

February 22, 2015 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/04/10/its-time-to-

rethink-the-employee-engagement-issue/3/

Smith, G. (2015). How to Improve Job Satisfaction and Increase Employee Engagement. Chart

Your Own Course International. Retrieved on February 22, 2015 from

http://www.chartcourse.com/the-pride-system/

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