Featured May 22, 2020 Five tips to keep remote interns engaged throughout their internships Back to Blog Three recommendations for increasing your employees’ engagement Date June 3, 2020 | Updated on February 28, 2022 Authors Logan Kohl Tags Employee Engagement Supervisors know well that engaged employees perform better and achieve more for their teams. So the question becomes, what are the best ways for supervisors to increase employee engagement? Here are three: Ensure employees’ skills are aligned with the agency’s mission. When employees can see that their skills and talents are used effectively and understand how their roles help advance their organization’s mission, they experience greater satisfaction and are more engaged in their work. And that makes them more productive and efficient. Have regular conversations with your employees to gauge how they see themselves fitting in with your agency’s or organizations’s mission. Help them by clarifying their roles and drawing connections between their work and your team’s impact. Prioritize employees’ professional development. Supervisors who prioritize their employees’ professional development create a better work environment. Employees have room to grow, learn new skills and apply those new skills on the job. Work with your employees to identify growth opportunities to aid them in improving their skills and advancing in their careers. Encourage them to participate in professional development opportunities such as shadowing programs, rotational assignments and training courses. Recognize employees’ achievements. Showing appreciation for employees lets them know their work matters, and that they are valued. As each employee will have a different preference for how to be recognized, discuss with them how they would like to be praised. Commend people in a timely fashion and make sure your words and actions match their level of effort and the impact of their work. Examples include: Writing a thank you note or giving a small gift.Sharing an employee’s impact and hard work at a team meeting.Providing an opportunity for advancement or increased level of responsibility, the highest form of praise. Read more about the Partnership’s employee engagement work, and learn how your agency ranks in employee engagement across government with the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings. Check out more posts in our Engage Against the Machine series: Communicating your employee engagement efforts: Lessons learned from HHSEmpower your employees to question your expectationsYour employees probably don’t realize what you have done to engage them Logan Kohl is a manager on the Partnership's Federal Workforce team.
