A complete guide to employee engagement strategy for 2023

Why employee engagement matters

An emotional commitment to your organisation means that engaged employees care about their work and the company. Ideally, your workers are there for more than just the paycheck — they should care about the company's goals, and therefore they work towards this, leading to success for the whole organisation. This is especially important for shift-based (or ‘deskless’) workplaces, where so many employees have direct contact with customers.

On the other hand, if your employees aren’t engaged, it can result in high turnover. Research shows that the cost of replacing an employee can be as high as 33% of an employee's base pay. The costs factored into this number include:

• Training a new employee

• Exit costs of the existing employee, such as severance or leave pay

• Job postings and time taken in interviews

• Relocation costs

By implementing the right employee engagement strategy, you’re far less likely to see an exodus of good employees, which can help your replacement costs drop significantly.

For a deeper dive into the cost of disengaged workers and how to turn this around, download our eBook.

How to implement an employee engagement strategy

An employee engagement strategy is about creating the right environment for your workforce, where engagement can flourish. This helps employees make that all-important emotional connection with your organisation.

Here's how to create an atmosphere in which employee engagement can flourish:

Foster regular, transparent communication between management and teams

Communication is the backbone of the business, according to 93% of business leaders in a Grammarly and Harris Poll study. This study also shows that teams lose almost an entire business day (7.47 hours per week) to ineffective communication. Fading engagement and loss of productivity are direct results of poor communication.

It can also lead to one of the most talked-about buzzwords in employment in 2022 — 'quiet quitting'. The term, which took off after New York-based engineer Zaid Khan posted a video on TikTok, means that employees may still be turning up to work, but they're no longer going above and beyond or subscribing to the company's goals. In short, it creates the complete opposite of employee engagement.

You can try to improve communication and avoid employees 'quiet quitting' in the new year by offering:

• Training that identifies different communication styles

• A listening ear, especially between leadership and employees

• Two-way communication that rewards feedback, even if the feedback is critical

• A platform that allows teams to bounce ideas off of each other

• Employee engagement software that allows for easy communication between team members, especially for deskless workers

Upskill your workforce

Thanks to the global pandemic, rapidly evolving new technologies and an increased understanding of the challenges of climate change, the modern world of work looks drastically different to how it did a few years ago. In 2023, it will be important to adapt your organisation — and your workforce — by addressing skills gaps. By encouraging existing employees to undergo training, rather than always seeking to recruit new workers, you can create the type of environment where your workforce feels valued and, therefore, more committed to the company's goals.

This is why training and development are important to keep your workforce happy. Not only does it allow your staff to progress in their careers, but it also equips them to do their current jobs more effectively. Research shows that training and development contribute to as much as 35.7% of job satisfaction levels.

It's also estimated that Gen Z workers will change careers and jobs much more often than their older colleagues. According to LinkedIn, 25% of Gen Z say they hope or plan to leave their current employer within the next six months. The biggest reason for this restlessness? A drive to expand their skills and rise into bigger roles. 

The story is similar for deskless workers. A July 2022 survey by Boston Consulting Group revealed that 37% of these workers planned to leave their current organisation in the next six months - indicating another round of exiting employees can possibly be expected in early 2023. ‘Lack of career growth’ was the second most-cited reason for wanting to move, second only behind ‘lack of flexibility or work-life balance’.

With the recent rise in eLearning platforms and mobile learning apps, employers now have a range of excellent resources at their fingertips to achieve this goal. With the help of this technology, you can deliver training and development sessions that are efficient and effective and are often available via mobile devices so that they can be accessed at any time from anywhere — the perfect solution for shift workers. Providing your workers with the opportunities to upskill in this way could significantly impact your employee retention rates. 

Offer the potential for flexibility

As the previously cited Boston Consulting Group research revealed, lack of flexibility and work-life balance is a key reason why so many deskless workers are opting to switch employers. Providing your workforce with the power to schedule leave themselves or bid for last-minute shifts is another key way to increase engagement. Humanforce's innovative employee engagement software allows workers to do just that. By giving them autonomy over their working patterns, employers are making rostering more efficient for their managers and offering the level of flexibility that is increasingly important to the workforce in 2023.

Employees are craving more flexibility and freedom in their working lives, whether due to the pandemic or just a change in mindset towards working patterns. A survey by Axios discovered that Gen Z workers were 77% more likely to engage with a job posting on LinkedIn that mentions 'flexibility' than one that doesn't. Millennials, meanwhile, are 30% more likely to click on this type of posting. These statistics show that the future of recruitment and workforce retention is likely centred on flexible working arrangements that suit the individual.

For further insights into the trends that will shape deskless workplaces in 2023, download Humanforce’s 2023 HR Trends eBook.

How Humanforce can help

Humanforce is a leading provider of shift-based workforce management solutions that simplify onboarding, scheduling, time and attendance, payroll, employee engagement, and communication. Customers in more than 23 countries use Humanforce to optimise costs, realise compliance confidence, empower their team, and drive growth. Humanforce was founded in Sydney in 2002, and today has offices across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK. 

Contact Humanforce and book a demo to see how our employee engagement software can change the way you do business and improve your employee engagement.