Scott Crabtree of Happy Brain Science offers the mnemonic device “Mind the GAPs” to help business leaders remember how to improve workplace engagement.
- Goals – There are over 200 studies that show that challenging employees to meet goals motivates higher performance.
- Alignment – Talk with employees to ensure they understand and value how their work fits into the big picture.
- Progress – Give people enough resources, remove roadblocks, visualize progress, and celebrate and savor progress.
And…
- Growth – Research shows that career opportunities are consistently a top engagement driver.
- Appreciation – A study from O.C. Tanner shows that 78 percent of workers were highly engaged when they experienced strong recognition versus 34 percent when they got weak recognition.
- People – Gallup data suggest that turnover is 22 to 37 percent lower when employees feel like someone cares about them as a person.
Expounding on that last point, Crabtree offers one more acronym to help managers recall engagement tips: “Hmmm” for human managers matter most.
“The person who makes the biggest difference in any employee’s engagement is that employee’s manager. If you want to make a big difference in employee engagement, start with your frontline managers. Give them what they need. Teach them how to engage themselves and others, and you’ll get your best ROI for employee engagement.”
