Does your Middle Market organization enjoy success at finding and hiring the best employees in the market? If so, congratulations, you certainly have fine-tuned your employer branding! However, can you say the same about retention and engagement once someone is added to your teams?
If you find employees aren’t engaged and motivated enough, you may need to focus on and redirect their attentions. But, you might be thinking that you don’t have the time, money or internal resources for an engagement campaign. Here’s the good news, you don’t need to spend a lot of any of those items.
Middle Market Engagement Begins With You
To begin with, re-engaging your employees doesn’t need to be big, extravagant efforts. You can easily foster an air of engagement by simply doing two things. First, ask for your employees’ opinions more often and make sure you listen to what they have to say. Ensure they see action from their suggestions, even if it is small steps. Next, give them more choices…in everything you can. From what kinds of food to stock in the break room to helping to design their own career paths, the freedom of choice goes a long way. Find ways to allow for more options rather than strict rules everyone must conform to. Your employees will feel more like an essential part of your organization rather than just a cog in the works who gets dictated to.
Engagement In The Middle Market = Ownership
Being an “owner” comes in many different flavors in Middle Market companies. Certainly, there are literal ways your employees can own part of your company. However, we are not suggesting you run out and start an ESOP. It may work for your situation, but there are many other, less obtrusive ways to foster an air of ownership.
Does every employee in your organization know how they personally are important to the overall performance of your Middle Market firm? Is each person aware how their specific talents, knowledge, and skills are crucial to keeping everything running smoothly? How often do you reinforce the idea that every employee, no matter their title, should be taking ownership for their success and own up to their mistakes?
If you aren’t able to answer yes to those questions or aren’t sure why they matter, you have some work to do to engage your teams through the concept of “ownership.” You can start by simply letting everyone know how they make or break your company’s success. Educate employees and teams on exactly how they play a part and why you need the best from everyone in order to move forward and up.
Take Middle Market Engagement To The Next Level
Next, allow for room to fly and fall. If no one in your Middle Market organization feels comfortable going outside their “box,” you need to fix that. Employees should feel comfortable making suggestions and taking some calculated risks. They also need to be held accountable, but not blamed, for failures and errors. By successfully showing everyone they have opportunities to be forward thinking and not get punished for mistakes, you teach employees how to take ownership.
The success of your Middle Market company depends on your employees. If you have the best you can find already hired, make sure you use smart techniques to keep them through employee engagement efforts.
So what’s in the Mighty Middle Market for me? — get it right now at www.Go4ROI.com.