Five tips to supercharge your employees for workplace success

Traditional HR functions are undergoing radical change to keep up with the digital transformation that is challenging today’s employers.

In a digital world increasingly influenced by millennials, employees expect a productive, engaging, enjoyable work experience.

So, rather than focus narrowly on employee engagement and culture, organisations are increasingly developing an integrated focus on the entire employee experience.

As a result, employee engagement has emerged as the key to workplace success and to attaining peak performance from employees.

Here are 5 tips for supercharging your employees for workplace success.

1. Create a user-enabling culture

The goal for any organization is to foster productive relationship-building and knowledge-sharing in the workplace, particularly as employees increasingly interact in more digital ways. That means integrating the technologies employees use to allow for simple, efficient collaboration, communication and innovation.

The key is to adopt the right tools for your employees to do their jobs. The right digital tools can help manage the organisation’s work – for example, allowing front office staff to more readily share information gleaned from their interactions with customers, with back office support.

2. A collaborative culture is a must

Employees are much more likely to come together as a team at companies with a strong culture. A positive culture is the backbone of a happy workforce – it facilitates social interaction, teamwork and open communication.

Without it, many employees will struggle to find the real value in their work, leading to a variety of negative consequences.

An open and collaborative culture that facilitates working together and breaking down silos will make employees feel safe to be their authentic selves. In a collaborative workspace, you can share your successes and failures. Doing this can help you build trust and good rapport among your employees.

3. Hire team players

Engagement starts right from the hiring process. You’re hiring individuals to work as part of a team and the organisation as a whole.

Make sure your hiring process is engagement-centric. Screen candidates using real-time scenarios and assess their attitude in a team-oriented workspace. If you focus on building a strong organisation that delivers your mission, you’ll need team players.

4. Invest in pulse surveys

Pulse surveys are specifically designed to do away with complicated survey systems and should be done consistently, once every few weeks, taking not more than 5  minutes of employees’ time.

They’re a good way to discover whether your employees’ goals are aligned with the company’s. This is one of the most useful tools to learn how employees feel about working in your company and what they really need.

Insights gleaned from these surveys are especially critical as trends in business and technology continue to change the way employees work.

In fact, 80 percent of senior leaders believe good employee engagement is a critical part of achieving business objectives, according to research from Gartner.

5. Turn work into a game

Games have become a serious matter. They can be designed around different activities, such as closing deals or tickets, fixing bugs, acquiring customers, generating leads, or completing backlogs.

If applied appropriately, gamification can help engage people, encourage desired behaviours and achieve specified objectives.

People are likely to gravitate to activities that are authentically rewarding and filled with the opportunities to achieve, grow and socialize. It is important therefore to have an end reward, like points, badges, level cards on a scorecard or leaderboard.