In a world where acquiring and retaining talent can determine a company's success, improving employee engagement has become more important than ever. Employee engagement can determine how loyal employees are to their employers and how invested they are in their company's success. It can also lead to higher productivity, employee retention, and customer satisfaction.
Therefore, all businesses need to invest in improving their employee engagement. However, there’s no better way to do this as a small organization than by partnering with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO).
In this post, we’ll discuss how partnering with PEOs can help small businesses improve their employee engagement.
What Is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement generally refers to how dedicated and emotionally connected employees are to their jobs. Engaged employees are usually passionate and motivated about what they do. They also gain more personal satisfaction from the job that goes beyond what’s in their paycheck. Engaged employees are often very productive and always strive for the company’s success.
On the other hand, unengaged or disengaged employees have little to no emotional connection to their jobs or workplace. They’re also more likely to be less productive, seek employment elsewhere, or take time off work for extended periods.
Signs Your Employees Aren’t Engaged
It’s easy to identify disengaged employees because they are not emotionally connected to or passionate about the company they work for. They’re often dissatisfied with their roles and have no hesitation showing it.
To help you easily identify signs of disengagement within your organization and actively take steps to deal with it, we’ve put together a list of signs to watch out for.
Reduction in Productivity
If you’ve discovered that previously hardworking employees now put in less effort than they used to, it is likely that they are no longer satisfied or engaged in their work. They may also produce less quality work output and frequently miss deadlines they’ve always met in the past. This is because disengaged workers no longer care about what their jobs are and are often just there for the money.
Of course, reduced productivity doesn’t always mean disengaged employees. Your workers may also just be stressed, tired, or going through personal problems. That’s why it’s important to have a qualified HR team’s insight look into the issue and identify how to properly deal with it. Factors like extended workload or poor management can cause burnout or frustration that may also cause productivity issues.
Withdrawal from the Team
If an employee who used to actively interact with the team is pulling away and would rather spend time alone, it may be a sign that they’re disengaging from the team. They may also miss work socials without reason and give excuses to spend as little time as possible with other employees in the company.
Afraid Employees
This doesn’t refer to a healthy fear of competition that can motivate employees to work harder. Instead, it refers to the unhealthy fear of speaking up at work because of a bullying boss or fear of being ostracized. Employees who are always afraid have the tendency to only watch out for themselves and are less likely to consider the company a place to build their careers.
How PEOs Can Improve Employee Engagement
Experienced PEOs can guide you to improve the level of employee engagement in your organization and create a community of like-minded people who are always rooting for the success of your company in the following ways:
Ensuring Smooth Recruitment and Onboarding
To create a team of engaged employees, you need to start from the recruitment process. They need to understand that the company they’re about to join has a robust communication culture. They also need a concise onboarding process once they’ve gone through all the recruitment stages to introduce them to the values and beliefs of the organization, and that’s where PEO partners really shine.
By introducing your new hires to the company’s corporate culture at this stage, they’ll be able to understand and acclimatize themselves to how things are done in the organization even before they get their first task.
This way, they can hit the ground running when they properly start the job and gain enough confidence to thrive in the organization and work on your core businesses.
Providing Career Development Opportunities
According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report, 7 out of every 10 potential talents say that getting the opportunity to learn at their workplace strengthens the connection they have with their organization, while 8 out of 10 say it adds purpose to their work.
This means that in the corporate world we live in today, organizing employee training and development programs for your workers is no longer negotiable. However, as a small or medium enterprise, these programs can be costly, and that’s where an IRS-certified PEO partner like ABO comes in. They can obtain comprehensive training packages at a cheaper price for your employees because they have a larger pool of clients to introduce to the education provider.
Competitive and Relevant Benefits
Financial security is necessary for job satisfaction, and having a strong benefits package can show your employees that you care about their financial well-being.
Furthermore, the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s Workplace Wellness Survey for 2024 report shows that 6 out of 10 employees believe that having a solid retirement savings plan is important to feel financially secure. Partnering with an IRS-certified PEO company like ABO that can help you provide your employees with 401(k)/retirement and other insurance options can help you improve the overall level of employee engagement in your organization and retain top talents.
Improving Workplace Safety
Employees who feel secure in the office are more likely to enjoy what they do. That’s why it’s important to regularly provide employee training sessions on safety protocols and routinely conduct safety audits to identify and deal with potential risks.
By partnering with a PEO, you get a dedicated team of employees who can organize training sessions and carry out safety audits on your behalf. This will make the workers in your organization feel cared for and increase their trust in the organization.
Encouraging Employee Feedback
Getting employee feedback is one of the few ways to know what your workers truly think about the organization. It can also help companies identify how to improve employee satisfaction and increase productivity.
PEOs can help organizations create effective surveys that address important topics such as compensation rates, company benefits, and opportunities for growth.
After the employees take the survey, they can also help the company analyze the results and develop a more effective strategy to make the workers feel more valued. Also, regular surveys and paying heed to employees’ feedback can signify to the employees that the company values their opinions and improves inclusivity in the organization.
Providing Personalized Support
Another way to help employees understand that the organization cares about them is to provide personalized attention. This means that workplace conflicts must be resolved professionally, and personal problems must be addressed individually and confidentially.
Giving this kind of support will help employees feel satisfied in the workplace and improve the sense of belonging they feel in the organization.
How HR Outsourcing Improves Employee Engagement
A driving factor of engagement is a sense of psychological safety – or a feeling of security and acceptance, which empowers your staff to make suggestions or conduct their tasks. It gives your people the sense of security and stability to take risks or share ideas that could help the company grow.
Enhancing employee engagement is a time-consuming task. It requires a team of highly experienced HR managers to constantly motivate the company's employees and help them become more loyal to the organization.
Because of the amount of work required to achieve employee engagement, your in-house HR team may find it difficult to focus on handling important company matters like payroll or benefits administration while working on employee satisfaction. However, by outsourcing key HR tasks, your in-house team can focus on other pressing matters within the organization.
Working with ABO to Improve Employee Engagement in Your Organization
Employee engagement is necessary for talent retention and increased productivity in an organization. However, as important as it is, it cannot be built overnight. It’s a constant work in progress that can take years to solidify.
By working with an IRS-Certified PEO like ABO, you can get a team of HR professionals to work on improving the employee engagement rate in your company while your in-house employees focus on your core businesses.
Reach out to ABO today to increase engagement in your company and transform your HR operations!
