What is the best How to engage your team for better productivity and profits? in 2024?

Being fully engaged in what you do means you can focus clearly, be more productive and achieve better results! Who doesn’t want more?

Gallup is one of the leaders in employee engagement surveys. They showed that the more engaged people are in their work, the more productive, customer-focused and profitable a company is. People are more fulfilled, more creative and more innovative. Increased energy, passion and optimism about the future allows people to thrive!

So focus on engaging your team (or the people around you) and you can enjoy the leverage and results! What can you do to get your team (or yourself, for that matter) more involved?

Here are 3 keys to help you get started:

1) Establish clear expectations about the big picture

Establishing clear expectations up front is a critical step in engagement. At this stage, it is important to focus on the desired results and not on how to achieve them to engage and empower people from the start. People generally don’t like being told what to do (who does?). So, by clearly outlining the outcomes needed and allowing plenty of flexibility, it will motivate people to come up with a plan so they can do it “their way.”

Another important part of this phase is clearly defining the big “why.” How does this project relate to the bigger picture, why is it important, and why is it beneficial to the individual? This becomes more and more important as you discover the latest generation of “millennials” on board (or with your kids) and a “what’s in it for me” attitude!

2) Play to your strengths

Strengths are the activities that you are naturally good at, that you find easy, and that you enjoy doing… It’s a recipe for focus and achievement! And it’s no surprise, the more you are in tune with your strengths, the more productive and creative you naturally become!

Wouldn’t it be great if you worked in a job where you could put your strengths to good use most of the time? It has been shown that for people who can use their strengths more often, they are also more engaged!

For those (including me) who have been in a job that doesn’t match your strengths, you are unmotivated, less confident and less productive. This can be a dangerous downward spiral of dissatisfaction that can significantly increase the chances of leaving that job (bad for retention). Fortunately in my case, I left one job for another within the company instead of leaving altogether.

It’s always a good idea for managers and their teams to be clear about strengths and job fit and ensure they are aligned as this has a significant impact on engagement employees!

3) Build an environment of trust and support

Any good relationship is built on trust, mutual respect and support. According to Gallup, the biggest influence on people’s engagement is their direct manager. What can you do to increase engagement with your direct team? Build relationships by providing different opportunities for everyone to get to know each other, including you.

In meetings with your team, listen more and ask my favorite question I heard at a Tom Peters talk – “What do you think? It’s simple and effective, and other people will participate in making decisions and charting the course for the future.

Try these strategies to get more engagement with your team and watch your productivity and results soar!