Tips for Minimum Wage Hike Survival:
Employee Performance & Engagement
Congratulations! You are well on your way to having the most cost-efficient workforce!
Now that you have learned how to conquer the roadblocks of Hiring Right, Tracking Time and Attendance, and understanding the importance of Employee Training – our last couple of tips for Surviving the Oregon Minimum Wage series will focus on Engaging and Retaining your staff.
With the Oregon Minimum Wage rising over the next few years you want maximize the amount of “return” or productivity that you’re getting from your staff. Addressing Employee Performance and Engagement is the most substantial way to gauge employee output.
Engaged employees are motivated to contribute to organizational success and are committed to its goals and values. Sure, you want staff to be happy working for your company—and while perks like vacation time or flexible schedules may enhance recruitment, or be a part of what makes your team happy to work at your company, perks are not what keeps employees engaged.
Surprisingly, employee engagement affects your bottom line even more!
What exactly, is “employee engagement?” According to BusinessDictionary.com, this phenomenon is defined as the emotional connection an employee feels for their employer and the company. This connection has a powerful influence on the employee’s behavior and the level of effort they put forth in work-related activities. Employee engagement also involves the ability of the employee to see how their own work contributes to the success of the company and this often translates into a sense of pride that the employee has about working or being associated with the company.
Employees who are not actively engaged in their work are not reaching their full potential – and are quite frankly costing you money! Gallup estimates that actively dis-engaged employees cost the U.S. upwards of $450 billion per year. Gallup’s employee engagement database shows that businesses with high engagement scores had 70{0c2d428c3cefef4a77c472786cabf3d957ca1c1fde265c02f19cd1ec2d7db907} fewer safety incidents compared with employers ranking low in employee engagement.
How you approach motivating your employees performance can be a key to differentiating between you and your competitors. To get the most from your employees:
- Set clear expectations. Let them know what is required and the goals they need to meet to achieve it.
- Ask for feedback from the employee—are those goals realistic?
- Evaluate yourself—do they have all the tools and resources needed to succeed?
- Give employees a level of responsibility and flexibility to get jobs done in a manner that works for them.
- Gauge progress. Remember the old adage; ‘you get what you measure’ applies. You will get the results that you regularly measure.
- Follow up with communication meetings that track and involve your employee. Make sure you maintain a scheduled feedback opportunity whether it’s weekly or monthly, and keep to it as part of your commitment to the employee.
The key is to empower your managers and employees to make a difference in their environments. Employees will differ in expectations as to what engages them— and it will be up to your managers (hopefully you hired and trained some good ones) to find ways to connect with each individual employee’s idea of engagement. The good news is that employee engagement done right will yield a noticeable difference in productivity, easily seen and measured!
The key to gaining control of your time is utilizing the resources available to you. Cardinal Services is committed to providing employers customizable HR solutions to help their businesses thrive. It’s true: time is money, so let Cardinal help you find more time to devote to what you do best: taking care of your business! Call us today to discuss implementing a Time and Attendance system that will meet your business needs!