What’s the Key to Great Employee Engagement in the IT Field?

For all of the effort that you put into hiring the right people, how much emphasis do you put on engaging them once they’re on the payroll? Employee engagement – particularly in a field like IT or technology – is more important than you’ll ever know.

The State of Employee Engagement

According to Gallup research, just 13 percent of employees worldwide are actively engaged at work. The numbers aren’t much better when you zoom in and look at the United States, where just 33 percent of employed Americans report being engaged at work.

An employee is either engaged or disengaged. If just one-third of American employees fall into the former category, that means two out of three employees are disengaged. Extrapolated across your company, this means you have a big problem on your hands.

“Not only are [disengaged employees] unhappy at work, but they are intent on acting out their unhappiness,” Gallup explains. “They monopolize managers’ time and drive away customers. Whatever engaged employees do – such as solve problems, innovate, and create new customers – actively disengaged employees will work to undermine.”

In a 2016 Gallup meta-analysis research study on nearly 2 million employees, the connection between employee engagement and key performance outcomes was clearly established. In particular, it found a positive correlation between customer ratings, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism, patient safety incidents, and product quality.

While it’s always good to see a concrete connection between these two areas, it’s the issue of acting on the knowledge that’s most challenging.  Employers and managers understand the need for employee engagement – often making it a key priority. The problem is that they often lack the resources or know-how to ensure success.

4 Ways to Improve Engagement Within Your Company or Department

When working in IT, it’s easy to forget about the human side of things. So much revolves around technology, processes, and automation that we don’t always remember that it’s ultimately the people who power the technology and allow it to click on all cylinders.

If you want to get the most out of your people, you need to prioritize employee engagement. Not in a vague manner that simply pays lip service to it, but in a tangible way that shows you care about who they are and why they’re here (not simply what they’re doing). Here are some ideas:

1. Wants Over Requirements

Most organizations fail at employee engagement as a direct result of trying to push too many requirements and rules onto employees, rather than letting them take charge. A leader should create a climate that enables employees to unleash their full potential. This may require you to take a step back and relinquish a little control.

“It is not the job of a CEO [or manager] to make employees listen to what you have to say; it is about setting up the system so that people want to listen,” Dan Crim writes for Ivey Business Journal. “The combination of the right environment and a culture that creates wants instead of requirements places few limits on what employees can achieve.”

2. Invest in Career Development

It requires a lot of effort and strategy to make a significant investment in professional development, but the return is always greater than the upfront investment. From a theoretical perspective, you’re empowering employees with new skills and knowledge that can be applied in their everyday tasks. On the practical side of things, you’re motivating them to work harder.

“The more the employee feels the company is investing in their future, the higher the level of engagement,” says Brad Shuck, who spends much of his professional time specializing in organizational development.

Career development can happen through formal courses and classroom training, but sometimes the best development is more organic – happening on the floor. Your top employees should be training your lower employees so there’s less of a gap between these two extremes.

3. Invest in Employee Well-Being

It’s not enough to invest in the professional development of your employees – you also need to look at their overall well-being. This may mean being proactive with potential hot-button issues. One such issue is addiction.

Did you know that a large majority of those with alcohol and drug addiction problems are actually employed? Contrary to popular belief, addicts aren’t always homeless people wandering the streets looking for their next high. They’re often functional and employed – though this doesn’t mean they aren’t costing their employers.

Instead of ignoring a key issue like employee engagement, make it a point to address these problem areas head-on by providing employees with opportunities to seek treatment, get guidance, and/or find support.

Another important area of employee well-being is work-life balance. Yes, you need to get the most out of your employees while they’re “on the clock,” but don’t work them to death. Ample rest, vacation time, and time off is key to having engaged employees during work hours.

4. Offer Recognition

Leadership expert Gordon Tredgold is a firm believer in the idea that recognition is key to employee engagement. However, he cites a data point from a research study that shows two-thirds of employees report not receiving any recognition on a regular basis. For those keeping track, that’s the same percentage of employees that are disengaged at work. Coincidence? Probably not.

Employers often think money is the best way to engage employees, so they offer bonus checks and raises. While money does talk, it’s not the most effective means of engaging. Over the long haul, simple recognition – like praising an employee in a team meeting or handwriting a note and placing it on a new employee’s desk – is far more useful.

Moving the Needle on Engagement

Employee engagement isn’t something that you quickly address in a meeting and then expect everything to be fine. In order to actually see some results, you have to sow seeds and wait to reap the harvest.

The good news is that you have some flexibility in how you approach employee engagement in the IT field. This article has provided some illustrations and examples, but feel free to pick and choose what works within the context of your company culture.