What is Employee Engagement and How Can Team Building Events Help?

Posted by Jake Mandel on Dec, 17, 2019

Hiring the right workers is incredibly important for the success of your business, but retaining those talented workers and ensuring that they are engaged with their job is arguably even more important.

Unfortunately, however, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace, only 15 percent of employees are engaged in the workplace. That means 85 percent of employees view their jobs negatively and are doing the bare minimum to make it through the day.

This isn’t sustainable. Any company that wants long-term success must put their employees first. Organizations that focus on employee engagement will realize a wide range of benefits. Before we get into those, let’s first look at what employee engagement actually is.

What is employee engagement?

While engagement and happiness in the workplace are closely related, someone that’s happy at work isn’t necessarily engaged. An engaged employee is one that’s not only happy at work, but is also emotionally committed to the organization.

Engaged employees actually care about their work and the performance of the company that employs them. These employees work hard to ensure your company meets its goals, and are happy to go above and beyond what’s required of them.

The result of that engagement, is that these employees are happy in their job and far more willing to stay at your company far into the future.

Why are engaged employees important for your business?

Engaged employees are incredibly important for your company. Successful employee engagement strategies have proven to improve productivity, create a more efficient team, reduce staff turnover, improve collaboration, encourage communication, foster an environment of innovation and much more.

This brings a wide range of benefits for your company, including:

  • It’s significantly easier to reach workforce targets when you have higher retention and lower turnover.
  • Better performance from workers, whether that’s higher quality customer service or better work produced.
  • Improved productivity means employees are working more efficiently than your competitors.
  • Improved work will results in an increase in sales and more profits.
  • Less absenteeism.

How do you create a team of engaged employees?

There are a number of strategies that your company can use to improve employee engagement by inspiring its workforce and rewarding efforts. Teambonders has listed just a few key methods here:

Improve company culture: Company culture is the foundation of your entire company. It guides how employees behave in the office, how they communicate with one another, the choices they make while at work and how much they enjoy their job. Investing in a strong company culture will create more engaged employees.

Create flexible working arrangements: No worker wants to feel like their personal life is coming second to their job. Offering flexible work arrangements, whether it’s work from home days or flexible start and finish times, will show your employees that you care about their personal life and not just how they perform in the office.

Invest in your employees: Employees want to know that their employer is willing to invest back into them, whether it be paying for their lunch once a week, creating a games room in the office or investing in their professional development. By investing in your employees, they will invest effort back into your company through their work.

How can team building events help?

One additional way to improve employee engagement is through regular team building programs. Investing in team building will not only show your employees you care about them, it will also bring your organization a range of benefits, including:

  • Improving communication and collaboration
  • Identifying your team’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Creating stronger relationships between employees
  • Encouraging respect within your team
  • Empowering less confident employees to make their voice heard
  • Helping employees to develop conflict resolution skills
  • And much more...

Ready to learn more about how team bonding events can improve employee engagement? Contact Teambonders today. We have a wide range of team bonding events that can be specifically tailored to your company’s unique needs.

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Tags: Benefits to Team Building