Most employers today are caught up in the energy of building a company culture. They are looking for ways to engage their employees and, as a result, get that extra effort that comes from having a passion for your work. You don’t have to look far to find innovative new approaches to employee onboarding, long-term development, free donuts and ping pong tables. While studies show about $270 million is spent annually on employee engagement, approximately 63% of U.S. employees are not fully engaged in their work.
RELATED: Employee Engagement in 2020
If you want a great culture that brings out the best in your employees, you have to find a way to positively impact their whole life. No one leaves their family at your employee entrance and companies who learn this and find a way to make a positive impact on the whole family will accelerate their employee engagement.
Employee Engagement
Focusing on the Family
My top 3 recommendations for whole family engagement:
1. Health and Benefits
Design health and wellness programs that work. Now is the time to take a look at your benefits. Health benefits and retirement options are always on top of employee wish lists for benefit programs. Every employee is asking him or herself: can I provide for my families and are they going to be protected if I can no longer provide? Help your employees answer these two questions and you will make a giant impact on their engagement. Most are looking at not only what you offer but can they elect benefits in a way that provides for their unique needs?
2. Support the Family
Remember - every employee is part of a complex system they call their family. Regardless if you are a single wage earner/head of household or part of a multi-wage earner family, your ability to support your family never goes away. Are you aware of this as a leader and do you make it easy for your employees to address this in their own lives? The wonderful thing about all these families is that they are so unique and that is how they make you stronger.
3. Remember the Non-Working Spouse
Do your employees come in early, work late, attend dinner meetings, and work through projects on weekend? If your answer is no, you might be missing something. If your answer is yes, who is at home supporting the family? Your employees are only able to put forth that extra effort when they know their family is taken care of. Remember their spouse is most likely doing double duty to cover that time. Think about thanking them at the Christmas party, sending home a thank you note with a gift card, or some other way to recognize the effort and support.
In Summation
If you can change your lens from the office to the greater community your team makes up, you will have a much stronger employee engagement base. Your employees are part of a family and recognizing/supporting that will make an impact.
As always, please let me know what you think and for more discussion on this and other leadership topics, subscribe to my podcast here.
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