Frontline employees are the ones that interact with your customers every day. They impact whether someone is satisfied with your company, leaves a positive review, or never comes back. Taking time to engage employees positively impacts the bottom line. Read on to learn four strategies proven to engage employees.
Give Them a Voice
Those who are in the trenches of your company each and every day may know it better than upper management. They know what machines constantly break down, what menu item the customers want back, what hinders 100% performance. Enabling frontline employees to share their feedback actively engages them and increases retention.
Career Opportunities
Laying out which career pathways are open for employees is important for engagement and retention. When employees know what they need to do to get to the next level of their career, they are more engaged in their work. From there, when employees begin moving through the ranks, they inspire others in the company to work hard to get to the next step in their career.
Purpose Driven Work
People want to feel like what they do makes an impact. Whether that’s by helping others grow in their position or contributing to the bottom line, it’s important. Frontline employees don’t always get to know the details of their impact. They know they help others and complete their tasks, but they may not know how their work contributed to the company meeting monthly revenue goals or that the store maintained their positive feedback ratings from surveys. By sharing this information with employees and letting them in on the joy of meeting and exceeding goals, it adds a purpose for their work.
Build Relationships
People leave managers, not companies. This is a common saying that is lamented in the HR space, but can be fixed. That’s because the people who feel like an outcast at work or have a negative boss, it impacts an employee. If they can do the same tasks at another company but be surrounded by better people, why stay? For these reasons, it is crucial for managers to build relationships with employees so they feel like they are heard, supported, and fair. However, it is also important for managers to help employees build relationships with others. This can include pre-shift meetings facilitating conversation, after-work gatherings once a month and simply getting to know everyone by name.
Ultimately, not everyone who works for you is looking for a life-long job. However, what you do to engage frontline employees does impact their productivity, attitude, and retention. Moving forward, craft an employee engagement strategy, and begin seeing positive changes in your staff! Plus, before making another hire, ensure you are hiring applicants that are like your best employees. Learn how Sprockets can help you do so.