Evolve Your Engaging Culture

Engaged employees strive to deliver their best work and achieve business goals. They tend to take the initiative and always endeavor to go the extra mile to ensure their team’s and the business’s success. 

In fact, companies with highly engaged employees experience 41% lower absenteeism and are 21% more profitable. And that’s why employee engagement has become such a key priority for many companies. 

For decades, companies have yearned to create engaging work environments. So much so that “engagement” has become a key metric to measure success. But unfortunately, creating an engaging workplace isn’t enough. 

Sure, it’s a great starting point. 

Highly-engaged employees get things done surrounded by motivated colleagues and leaders. They’re highly committed to supporting your company’s mission, and they’ll go the extra mile. 

But the truth is that they’ll do so without knowing how to look after themselves. In other words, they’ll expose themselves to the risk of burnout by overloading themselves and neglecting their physical and mental health because they don’t know how to fuel their high performance in a sustainable way.

Now, you might be providing them with a free gym membership, free fruits, and mental health days to help them reset and re-energize. But these perks won’t help if they’re only used as a short-term or band-aid fix. You need to encourage your team to incorporate critical tools such as energizing habits into their lifestyle to fuel their high performance. 

An Engaging Culture breeds CORPORATE TROOPERS

Employees who evolve in an engaging workplace are motivated and empowered. Supportive management helps them feel cared for and valued, instilling a sense of safety by the same token. Highly engaged employees don’t fear for their job. They’re excited to go to work and are committed to go the extra mile. The downside is that they often forget to take care of themselves in the process, depleting their energy levels.

Engaging workplace environments breed Corporate Troopers. They’re engaged with their job and their team, but they don’t know how to manage their energy levels which often leads them to exhaustion.

Think of a corporate trooper as a soldier always ready to fight battles for you and ensure your success but running out of ammunition every time they do so. Or as star performers, empowered by their leadership team, always ready to go the extra mile, but always running out of gas before reaching their destination. 

It's time to EVOLVE!

You’ve got an engaging culture, congratulations:-)

This means you’ve created a positive and rewarding work environment. And believe me, after years of helping businesses improve their company culture, I can tell you that it’s no easy feat.

However, as good as having an engaging company culture might seem, you’re missing a key component to help your employees fulfill their full potential and thrive in their lives; Personal Excellence.

That’s right. 

An engaging work culture is motivating, but it doesn’t empower employees to strive for personal excellence which ultimately drive their professional growth. It does not provide them with the fuel they need to perform at their best in the long run.

If you want to galvanize your troops, eradicate burnout, challenge the status quo, and redefine your workplace, then having an energizing culture is what you're ultimately striving for.

The good news is that I have a few powerful tips to share with you to help you successfully evolve your engaging culture!

Promote Personal Excellence Strategies

Employees who value personal excellence are fully engaged because they’re always striving to do better and reach their full potential, thus actively growing, improving, and developing. 

Here are some strategies to promote personal excellence:

• Encouraging participation in 360-degree surveys so individuals can assess their strengths and weaknesses.
• Encouraging employees to take their vacation days and harness the power of recovery.
• Encouraging community work to expand social awareness. 
• Encouraging employees to participate in personal growth programs such as the Game-On Challenge to implement and maintain energizing habits that will fuel their success. 

Provide Opportunities For Self-Actualization

Employee engagement is at its peak when employees are self-actualized. They feel a deep connection to their work and company and consistently challenge themselves for ongoing improvement.

Here are three ways to support self-actualization in your team:

•  Challenge your team while ensuring challenges aren’t beyond their skill levels
• Help your employees discover what makes them unique and what their strengths are so they can make a bigger impact.
• Allow them to work on projects they’re passionate about. 

Show Employees How Your Team And Company Aligns With Their Values

One of the biggest reasons employees feel disconnected in their company is because they don’t understand how their work contributes to the company’s mission. For employees to feel aligned with your company’s mission, they need to see that their work matters and understand how it fits in the grand scheme of things. 

That’s why value alignment is a powerful strategy to drive employees’ engagement and should, therefore, be a priority for your business. As part of your values alignment strategy, you should clearly define, communicate and share your company’s mission and values and regularly reassess them. 

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Employee engagement is still at or near the main focus of many surveys that cover the concerns of leadership teams. Many companies reported having high employee engagement scores and thought they are doing well, only finding out that their employees are still struggling. While having a high employee engagement is a great starting point, it’s not enough anymore. As we enter this post pandemic hybrid work era, leadership teams and employees are looking for new ways to experience work. My next blog entry will reveal the type of culture that will get your employees scream 'Happy Monday' because they are excited to get to work! Stay tuned!