The HR World’s recent webinar, Engaging Times: Quick and easy ways to motivate employees, explored the challenges of creating an engaged workforce and how to motivate the wider workforce.
The panelists at this event were Chris Knight, Sales Director at webinar sponsor emPerform, Dina Knight – Chief People Officer, DataTec and Logicalis, and Karina Paschalis – Human Resources Business Partner, Canvas Offices. Here they address two more questions on this subject:
1: What do you think should be the main reason for engaging employees – is it for their own good or for the good of the organisation?
Chris Knight: Engaged employees are key drivers of productivity, innovation and positive workplace culture. It can influence retention rates, communication, mental health and overall profitability. So yes, it is good for both the employee and the organisation.
Karina Paschalis: Employee engagement should be a win-win situation – benefiting both the employees and the organisation. Engaged employees tend to be more motivated, productive, and satisfied in their roles, which in turn leads to better business outcomes, such as higher retention, improved performance, and a stronger company culture.
If an organisation prioritises engagement solely for its own benefit, employees will likely see through this, leading to disengagement.
On the other hand, when engagement efforts genuinely consider employees’ well-being, development, and satisfaction, they are more likely to be invested in the organisation’s success.
2: My organisation doesn’t have a huge budget for reward programmes – I’m worried that we wouldn’t be able to act on anything we found from an employee survey.
Karina Paschalis: A meaningful response to employee feedback doesn’t always require a big budget. While financial incentives can be valuable, engagement is often driven by non-monetary factors such as recognition, career development, work-life balance, and a positive work environment. Here are a few cost-effective ways to act on survey results:
- Better Communication: Acknowledge survey results openly and outline any planned changes, even small ones. Employees appreciate being heard.
- Recognition & Appreciation: Publicly recognising employees’ contributions (e.g., shoutouts in meetings, personalised thank-you notes) can boost morale.
- Career Growth Opportunities: Offering mentorship, training, or job shadowing opportunities can make employees feel valued.
- Workplace Flexibility: If feasible, flexible hours or remote working options can enhance job satisfaction at no cost.
- Employee-Led Initiatives: Create focus groups or task forces where employees can contribute ideas and improvements.
The key is to demonstrate that feedback is taken seriously, even if large-scale changes aren’t immediately possible. Small but meaningful actions can still have a significant impact on engagement.
Dina Knight: It’s important to show employees that the business listens and makes changes based on their feedback. For those with smaller budgets for reward programmes, it’s important to get creative. For example, you can offer an extra day of annual leave or appreciation events so that employees still get the recognition they deserve without the huge costs attached.
Chris Knight: A lot of the time the things that need addressing are not monetary, it is often more about feeling valued and that they contribute to the success of the team/company and can see how their efforts each day help the company progress, and that their opinion counts and they are listened to. These simple things go a long way to helping employees be engaged at work and they don’t take a lot of effort to change e.g. encourage open communication, set clear goals, emphasise regular feedback, show appreciation and invest in employee development etc. So there is a lot you can do to help encourage employee engagement without needing a budget for reward.
