Tackle employee engagement in your small business or startup

Employee engagement isn’t just for corporates with big HR budgets. Make some easy improvements by focusing on these 7 areas.

Check links for good tips.

1. Sense of purpose

Set clear goals from the top to help unite people as a team working towards clear, common objectives. Make work meaningful for each person by aligning jobs and tasks to these big overall goals.

The trend towards businesses that combine profit and purpose is also a way of attracting talent that wants to see transparency and social responsibility from their potential employers.

2. Autonomy

Empower your people to control their own schedule. Your people will value being able to balance their home lives and it’ll also limit issues spilling back over into work.

Let people develop new skills by wearing different hats at work and avoid getting too tied down by job titles and rigid role descriptions.

3. Rewards and recognition

Seek to recognise people for positively displaying the values that support your culture. Make informal recognition happen with a ‘little and often’ approach. Celebrate success.

Carefully manage the pay difference between job levels. Does the difference between the senior team and average job feel fair? Transparency on payscales will help build a feeling of trust and fairness. Don’t just concentrate on a basic salary.

Pay the Living Wage it makes business sense.

4. Teamwork and collaboration

Having respected peers and a ‘work best friend’ will dramatically increase retention. Always involve the team in hiring decisions. The guys at ustwo look like they’ve figured it out!

Combine teambuilding and social responsibility by supporting volunteering programmes.

5. The office

Limit office corners and individual spaces to the senior team. Going open plan removes the physical barriers that prevent people from communicating and sharing ideas.

Prioritise fun into the working week and don’t underestimate how many things you can achieve with a free lunch for your people. Make first days and birthdays special.

6. Company culture

Wear your company culture for the world to see. Write it down as if it was an obituary — how do you want to be remembered? Include a mix of tasks and behaviour. This startup have a good simple example.

Enable your culture to flourish by supporting diversity and the development of softer skills. Fan the flames of creativity.

7. Internal comms

Share plans and issues with the team — bring them along the journey. Find ways to test their engagement through surveys, lunches and 1 to 1 sessions with senior leaders. One way or another measure how you stack up against these core questions.

You can never over communicate!

Paul Schofield is a freelance HR consultant and founder of The HR Lab. There’s more here and www.hrlablondon.com

Follow Paul on Twitter.