• Login to your Mentoring or Board account (programme members only)

    • Help with...

    How can I increase staff engagement and motivation?

    Imagine your business as a car. Your strategy is your steering wheel: setting your direction, pursuing your vision. Your skills, knowledge and training are your engine: converting energy into motion. The fuel? That’s motivation. Motivation is the gas in your tank. Literally the energy we release when our core motivators are triggered. Often it’s emotional, invisible or sub-conscious, but nevertheless it’s one of the most valuable assets you have. Work on improving the engagement of your staff with some simple steps.

    Ways to help you deal with it:

    Action plan

    Turn your staff into brand advocates

    Effort : Medium
    Impact : Medium

    We live in a world of reviews, whether its for a restaurant or that new product you're thinking of buying. Your employees are often the most impactful and genuine advocates your business can have – whether its in attracting new members to the team or encouraging consumers to start buying your products and services. Introduce some structure and guidance so being an effective advocate is easy.

    ACTION PLANS are a structured list of steps designed to help you approach tackling a particular business challenge.

    • We explain why each step is important
    • Customise by setting your own completion dates and assign tasks
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available

    Action plan

    Increasing overall staff engagement

    Effort : Medium
    Impact : High

    Most of your team will know where their day-to-day responsibilities lie and what doing their job well looks like. However, engagement in the company's wider goals and ambition is equally important to ensure efforts feel united and you don't fall into the trap of having siloed parts of the organisation. Getting staff interested and engaged in topics such as the company's financial situation and what goes on at board level discussions will make it far easier to get buy in and involvement when increased levels of effort are required or more challenging times are reached.

    Action plan

    Introducing an incentive scheme

    Effort : Medium
    Impact : High

    It's the carrot and stick scenario – even the most engaged need an occasional nudge towards desired behaviour, attitude and action. While small businesses don't have the bottomless pockets some big corporates have, incentive schemes can be drawn up on a budget and actually take advantage of the smaller set up. However, it's important to put the work in at the beginning so that incentivised actions align with what your business is looking to achieve in the long term.

    Guide

    An introduction to increasing staff engagement and motivation

    Employee engagement and motivation are products of a hard-to-measure mix of personal drivers, company performance and culture – it might feel like a tough subject to tackle.

    GUIDES break a challenge down, providing important context and real-world experiences.

    • Based on SME experiences, not corporate jargon
    • Filled with real-world stories
    • Achievable steps every business can take

    Other support that’s available

    Why good engagement is a two-way street

    Why good engagement is a two-way street

    A disengaged staff can have a significantly negative effect on productivity, customer service levels and retention. See what recruitment experts Robert Half suggest.

    Calculate the value of getting on top of engagement

    Calculate the value of getting on top of engagement

    Use Engage's calculator to find out how much difference you can make to your bottom line by reducing attrition and driving up levels of employee engagement.

    How other businesses have tackled something similar

    Real business story

    Double-down on employee engagement during difficult times

    Employee engagement is rooted in culture and communication. How leaders engage with staff on a daily basis can have a huge impact on performance and productivity across the business..
    Alan Furley, director of ISL Recruitment

    Real business story

    Use what really drives your people to get the best results

    Thinking creatively, businesses from all corners of Britain have introduced work incentives both big and small to keep staff motivation high. Each have learnt that the more inspired a workforce is the more productive they tend to be..

    Real business story

    Brand advocacy is built on a personal connection with the business

    Successful companies know that an effective brand puts you head and shoulders above the competition. And, there’s no better advocates for your brand than those who live and breathe it every day – your employees..

    The questions lots of businesses are trying to answer

    What issue is keeping you awake at night? A bit of targeted support is often all you need to overcome those challenges.

    Select a topic

    Digital

    How can I improve the digital presence my business has? How should I go about collecting data to improve my business? How should I use the data I have to improve decision making? How can I streamline and automate some of our business processes? How do I work out the best digital sales channels to use? How do I assess and choose the right technology to improve business operations? How do I effectively seek external digital support? How can I understand what digital tools or support my business needs? How do I know if my technology is robust enough for growth? How should I best budget and plan for new technology investments?

    Leadership & Strategy

    How do I learn to become a better leader? How do I improve the communication in my business? How do I get staff interested in our vision and values? How can I reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader? How do I give my team autonomy and get better at delegating? As a leader, how do I learn to trust others within my organisation? How do I apply learnings from other businesses to my own company? How should my role as a business leader evolve with the company’s growth? How can I balance short-term needs with long-term targets? How do I get better at noticing and reacting to warning signs?

    People & Team

    How can I improve my hiring and onboarding practices? How can I develop the skillsets of my workforce? How can I develop career paths for my staff? How can I run a better appraisals process? How should I performance manage my staff? How do I deal with a challenging member of staff? How can I increase staff engagement and motivation? How can I keep my best members of staff? How do I manage an effective remote workforce? How can I reduce employee turnover?

    Planning

    How do I better inform my business plans? How do I know when to scale up my business? How can I define and communicate my vision for success? How do I ensure my business can navigate a dip in trading? How do I know when to invest in my business? How can I get better at looking internally at my business? How can I get staff interested in the financial situation? How can I make my business more resilient to change? How can I balance ambition with setting realistic goals? How can I work out what required skillsets are missing in the business?

    Sales & Growth

    How can we develop new products and services? How do I develop a clear unique selling point? How can we better serve our most loyal customers? How do I financially plan for new opportunities? How do I build a network to support my business? How can I get a better return on investment from my marketing? How can I identify new customers to target? How do I create targets and KPIs for my staff? How do I make sure my team and processes are ready for growth? How do I benchmark my business against competitors?
    All