Employee Engagement for Success: How to Build a Strong Team Foundation

In the business world, many factors contribute to success – from having access to capital and forging the right connections to possessing adequate market knowledge and offering a brilliant product or service. But one key factor employers should pay much attention to, especially amid today’s tight labour market is this: hiring the best people and bringing them together to create a high-performing team.

Doing so, however, requires more than just putting star players in one room and expecting them to do instant magic. The Society for Human Resource Management defines a high-performance work team as “a group of goal-focused individuals with specialised expertise and complementary skills who collaborate, innovate and produce consistently superior results.”

For a team to become an A-team, its members—and its leaders—have to be united by a common goal, with each individual committed to playing one’s role in the pursuit of success. More importantly, this goal has to be aligned with their personal values and aspirations in order for it to be meaningful and truly worth the chase.

One approach to creating a dream team is through employee engagement. A study by Gallup confirms the substantial relationship between engagement and work performance across various industries. Meanwhile, research from Deloitte has found that happy, engaged teams deliver up to 50% better performance than their less committed colleagues. Employees with high engagement levels are also more collaborative, less prone to burnout, and more likely to stay with the company longer.

If you are keen on building a strong team foundation, it’s vital to understand how to engage your employees. Then, you must work to keep it that way.

No longer just a trivial HR concern, employee engagement has become a hot topic that’s now being discussed on a C-suite level, with companies battling it out to entice with compelling EVPs, provide the best flexible benefits, and create enviable work cultures – all in an attempt to drive higher engagement.

That said, employee engagement does not simply refer to employee happiness or satisfaction. It is a concept that describes the level of dedication, passion, and enthusiasm that a worker feels toward his job. Put more succinctly, it is “the emotional commitment that the employee has to the organisation and its goals,” according to Forbes.

When a person is engaged in the workplace, they care about their work and the company – not just the paycheck, title, or even perks. They are committed to doing their part in achieving the team’s and the company’s goals, and are motivated to contribute their best efforts.

For example, an engaged IT specialist willingly helps a teammate troubleshoot a critical tech problem even if it’s out of his scope of work. Similarly, an engaged salesperson proactively thinks of ways to boost store sales without being asked. Meanwhile, an engaged creative artist stays on the lookout for design inspiration for work even while on holiday. These employees’ perspective towards the job goes beyond the basic exchange of time for money; they genuinely enjoy what they do and take pride in their achievements.

When coalesced into a team, these employees can outperform the rest in business outcomes critical to the organisation’s success.

Given how employees’ enthusiasm at work can translate into tangible benefits for the company, from better service and customer satisfaction to increased sales and higher profit levels, it’s crucial to identify what drives engagement for today’s workers. A caveat: Things are constantly changing, so you must be up to speed with what employees need and want. Check out the changing demands of today’s workforce by reading our report, What Job Seekers Wish Employers Knew.

Here are some key factors affecting employee engagement in 2023:

A strong leadership approach is crucial in shaping organisational culture, greatly affecting the overall employee experience. Research shows that leaders affect employee engagement the most, with up to 70% of team engagement attributable to the manager. Employees must feel that their leader genuinely cares about them or they can become disengaged—or worse, quit. Case in point: In a 25-year Gallup study, it was found that how long an employee stays within a company is primarily determined by his relationship with his direct boss.

Culture plays a massive role in boosting employee engagement since it’s the real-life manifestation of the company’s values. An organisation that values people over profits will naturally prioritise employees’ well-being, providing a space where employees can feel safe and valued, and where anyone can expect to be treated with mutual respect. On the flip side, a toxic culture can severely undermine engagement, leading to increased stress and decreased job satisfaction.

The past few years prompted employees to reevaluate their professional lives, including where and when they work. It triggered the increased demand for flexible working with more employees wanting schedule flexibility and others wanting location flexibility. To keep your workforce engaged, your company has to be open to offering some level of flexibility, which, in turn, has been proven to positively influence performance.

Workers understandably lose their motivation to work when a clear career path is not in sight. After all, a sense of progression is vital for employees, especially high-performing ones. It’s no wonder that training or self-learning programmes are the most common form of career development that Singaporean companies are planning to offer this year, according to JobStreet’s 2023 Hiring, Compensation & Benefits Report.

Acknowledging employees’ efforts and achievements makes them feel valued, boosting their morale and enhancing their commitment to their jobs and the company. Companies with recognition programs demonstrate 14% higher employee engagement, productivity, and performance than those without.

Fostering a sense of belonging in the workplace not only contributes to employees’ mental health, but also makes them more likely to be invested in the company’s success. They feel they are truly a part of it. As such, it’s an important aspect of employee engagement, one that also improves communication, collaboration, and teamwork. Also worth noting: Research shows that millennial to Gen Z workers now expect leadership to support a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Many factors come into play when building and maintaining employee engagement on the individual level. But with the right strategies, you can also use these engagement drivers to create high-performing teams for bigger and better organisational success.

Hire and train great managers who can consistently engage the team members to deliver outstanding performance. Your company’s leaders should demonstrate qualities and behaviours you want to see in your team members, setting a positive standard for collaboration and commitment. Here are some concrete steps you can take:

• Provide regular training. Constantly upskill your managers, providing tools to support their continual growth and harness their leadership abilities. Core skills include clear communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution. They should also be trained in employee psychology, allowing them to lead with empathy and care.

• Mentor and shadow. Pair aspiring managers with experienced mentors or allow them to shadow successful managers so they can learn through observation and guidance.

• Assess and give feedback. Provide regular feedback on your managers’ performance, highlighting strengths and identifying areas for improvement.

Treat your employees as the most valuable resources of your company because that’s exactly who they are. This is also where your employer branding comes in—and how you use it to your advantage.

• Empower with employee engagement activities. Incorporate fun activities, such as bowling nights, learning lunches, and employee-led clubs, into the work calendar. Competitive events, wherein teams or departments have to work together to win, are also helpful in cultivating a strong team culture.

• Ramp up employee-centred benefits. These days, these include special leave (e.g. family care leave and menstrual leave) and work-balance perks such as free snacks and casual Fridays. Make sure to incorporate these into your Employee Value Proposition or EVP, too, to entice top talent.

• Provide mental health support. Implement well-being programs and make mental health resources and support accessible to employees.

Encourage autonomy by giving your employees more control and choice when it comes to when and where they work—but be sure to provide guidance and support, as well as the tools needed for collaboration and teamwork.

• Create clear flexible work policies. Outline comprehensive guidelines for available flexible arrangements, such as remote work, flexible hours, or compressed workweeks, and make sure they’re well communicated.

• Focus on results rather than the hours. Develop results-driven workers and teams with outcome-based performance metrics that focus on the output, regardless of their work schedule or location.

• Train your managers. Equip your leaders with the skills and competencies needed for effectively managing remote or flexible teams, including proper communication, feedbacking, and micro-understanding—as opposed to micromanaging.

Perceived growth opportunities in the workplace fosters a sense of empowerment among employees, which in turn leads to higher engagement. Fuel that go-getting attitude by being proactive with providing continuous career support and guidance.

• Invest in skill development. Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) highlights the positive relationship between skill development and engagement. Constantly upgrading your employees’ skills through workshops and training allows them to become more capable and confident in their roles, impacting team performance, too.

• Create tailored development plans. Collaborate with your employees to map out customised development plans that outline their career paths—individually and as a team.

• Support cross-team exposure. Allow employees to work in different roles or teams to broaden their skill set and widen their understanding of the organisation.

Recognising team achievements is just as important as acknowledging individual wins. But more than just praising for good performance, create a continuous culture of appreciation to keep your employees and teams motivated. Make sure to keep the workplace competition friendly, though. Otherwise, the intense rivalry and comparison may end up demotivating employees instead.

• Have a regular recognition program. Acknowledge employees’ and teams’ efforts and accomplishments monthly, quarterly, or annually—through awards or public recognition—to boost morale and motivation.

• Provide tangible rewards. While 85% of workers are motivated by monetary incentives in the short term, constantly using cash as a reward can encourage unhealthy competition and is more likely to stir up resentment and conflict. Non-monetary incentives, however (e.g. free trips, complimentary services, special assignments), have been found to positively influence engagement and performance.

• Encourage peer-to-peer recognition to strengthen team relationships. Train managers to actively and regularly recognise their team members’ good performance—as a way of leading by example. When employees see their leaders being generous with praise and recognition, they are more likely to follow suit.

Ensure that each employee truly feels they are a valued team member from the get-go by implementing (DEI) policies that respect and accommodate the various needs of your workforce. Prioritising diversity has been found to be linked to building a high-trust climate in an organisation, ultimately increasing employee engagement.

• Create diverse teams. Homogeneity is a trap, with studies proving that working with people who are different from you can contribute to better innovation and smarter thinking. To develop high-performing teams, don’t be afraid to go for a diverse mix of talents.

• Promote diversity in leadership positions. Practicing diversity at the top demonstrates the company’s commitment to inclusion at all levels.

• Celebrate differences. Organise events that highlight different cultures, backgrounds, and traditions.

Employee engagement is not solely dependent on the employee. Business owners and company leaders play a critical part in how engaged or disengaged employees are, and this consequently affects whether or not they have the potential to create high-performing teams.

That said, if you want your employees to perform at their best, employers should look at employee engagement as an aspect of workplace life that they should closely monitor and develop.Watch this seminar to learn more about successful employee engagement.

What is an employee engagement? Employee engagement refers to the emotional commitment employees have toward their work, the company, and its goals. Engaged employees are dedicated, motivated, and always ready to put in their best efforts, resulting in higher productivity and better performance.

What are the key drivers of employee engagement? Key drivers of employee engagement today include having strong leadership, a caring culture, flexibility in the workplace, opportunities for career growth, recognition and rewards, and feelings of connection and inclusion.

How can employee engagement help in building strong teams? When employees are highly engaged, they have the potential to create high-performance work teams that consistently deliver superior results.

Visit JobStreet’s Future of Recruitment and Compensation and Benefits reports for more insights regarding Singapore’s workforce.