Searching for the best way to engage employees? Look below the surface to find motivators specific to your company. Image © 2009 photosbymaureen.com

If you’ve been in communications for a little while or are an experienced leader, you likely already already know a bit about employee engagement. (If you don’t, you might want to check out an article defining employee engagement, or this recent brief article in Business Week). What you might not know is exactly what drives employee engagement in your company. Now is a great time to find out.

Employee engagement is a great focal point for a leader communications strategy in difficult times. Now more than ever, higher levels of engagement might just be critical to your company’s survival.

When employee engagement works, the results can be dramatic. Studies by Gallup, Towers Perrin, The Conference Board and others have reported revenue gains in highly engaged companies of forty percent or more. Engagement starts with effective leadership, is fostered by authentic communication, and is maintained in environments where employees feel that managers can be trusted to ‘walk the talk’ when it comes to mission, vision, and valuing employees’ contributions.

Those are the basics. how does employee engagement work in your company? Let’s look below the surface…

As a communications professional, you (hopefully) have valuable information about your company’s culture stashed between your ears. Now is the time to pull that information out of your brain and document it for your leadership team. To get to the bottom of what makes (or can make) employee engagement work at your company, ask yourself:

• What behaviors does our company culture reward? Are we innovators, cost cutters, revenue seekers, or risk reducers?
• What behaviors does our industry reward? In other words, what are the most successful companies in your industry doing right now that is helping them survive?
• What rewards are valued by employees? Are there internal awards programs, training or networking opportunities seen as a path to management approval or career success?
• How can we draw connections between all of these in a cost effective way?

The book 1001 Ways to Reward Employees by Bob Nelson is all about inexpensive ways to encourage employees and help them feel valued. If you are starting from scratch, that’s a great source for some ideas. But remember, it’s leadership and valuing employees’ contributions plus knowing what makes your corporate culture tick that will make an employee engagement program effective. One size of recognition, reward or incentive definitely does not fit all companies. Combining your knowledge of company culture with engagement best practices may be just the right formula for keeping your organization productive in these challenging times.