Employee Engagement: How To Keep Up In The Second Half of The Year

Employee engagement is a year-round duty. However, the latter part of the year is when it becomes extremely important. With the mid part of the calendar year gone, it is possible for your employees to lose focus in the second half of the year. Technically, it is not unseriousness but a reality that should be fixed.

For employees, job satisfaction is often dependent on intangibles such as feeling part of the team and being appreciated/valued.

Let’s look at the story of Amaka. Amaka is an expert digital marketer in an investment company. During the first half of the year, she resolved to put her all into work. However, towards the second half of the year, she started looking for somewhere else to work. This is because she does not feel involved in the company. She also does not get feedback about her performance from her superiors. While her salary is very attractive, she does not feel motivated anymore.

She is one out of a hundred “Amakas”. A plan that clearly spells out measurable performance metrics is crucial. Therefore, we curated tips to engaging and motivating your employees during the second half of the year. Guess what? They may sound cliché, but we’ve decided to bring them to your remembrance as a lot of managers neglect them.

Also Read– The Finance Act 2020: How It Affects Employment Tax and Payroll

Re-evaluate

Conduct an honest review of where you currently stand. More importantly, outline an even more honest projection as to how you see the rest of the year playing out. If the goals have not being met, put a plan in place with concrete steps for improving performance.

Assign Tasks

Your plan should include a list of goals for each member of the team – not unrealistic goals, but a concrete set of achievable ones that everyone is personally accountable for. Give them room to do these tasks to the best of their abilities. Remember it’s the second half of the year and you shouldn’t be pressuring them. Ideally, the goals have been set from the beginning of the year so you are only reassessing where everyone is and helping to improve productivity.

Constantly Communicate

Create a culture of communication where managers and employees can work together. Use training sessions, emails and meetings to get to know how your employees feel. Ask for their input and get them involved in decision making. This way, they see the company as their responsibility and would be motivated to work towards its success.

This does not only motivate them, it also creates a more productive way of working.

Provide Tools for Success

The productivity of your employees can come to a halt if they are trying to fix a situation and they do not have the required tools to solve it. It can be overwhelming. However, providing the required training and tools needed would provide a solid foundation for the tasks ahead. This would in return improve your employee engagement.

Finally, the second-half of the year should not be so different from the first. The approach may change and goals evolve, but managers should continually ensure that their employees are executing the plan laid out for them. If they are not, managers are to work on employee engagement in order to rectify below par performance.