What is Employee Engagement and Why Should I Care?

Jean Hanson

Employee Engagement is defined as an employee's willingness and ability to contribute to company's success. Or in other words, the extent to which your employees are willing to put extra effort into their work in the form of extra time, brainpower and energy.

As a cleaning business owner, you might be thinking, yeah right! Extra effort? I'm lucky if I can get them to show up to work! So rather than think of ways to help employees become more "engaged" in their work, some of us would rather continue with the revolving door -- employees continually coming and going. That seems like a lot of work to me!

What can we do as small employers to improve our employees' engagement to their work and our success?

1. Find out what the competition is doing to keep their employees. What wages are they paying? What benefits do they offer? Do they have incentive programs?
2. Implement a meaningful employee recognition or incentive program.
3. Ask employees for their opinions and ask for feedback. People want to know that their opinion matters, and by involving them in the decision-making process, they'll feel more engaged in their jobs.

When implementing an employee recognition or incentive program, keep in mind the following:

• Make sure the rewards are meaningful. Think about the lifestyle of your employees and offer rewards that match that lifestyle.
• Be fair and consistent with all recognition and incentive programs.
• Don't just hand over a reward. Be sure to communicate to the employee the value of their contribution to the success of your company. Offering public recognition in the form of a meeting or writing about the recognition in the employee newsletter is also important.
• Consider offering learning opportunities as an incentive. Send employees who show an interest in their job and your company to a workshop that will enhance their skills.
• Track your incentive programs. Be careful to study the laws surrounding incentives, as they may carry tax consequences.

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Jean Hanson helps owners of commercial cleaning companies build a more profitable and successful cleaning business through her online community at TheJanitorialStore.com. Jean is also the host of the popular Web TV show CleaningBiz.tv and author of the newsletter Trash Talk - sign up today!

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Copyright TheJanitorialStore.com. All Rights Reserved.
Steve Hanson helps owners of small cleaning companies build a more profitable and successful cleaning business through his online community at TheJanitorialStore.com. Read inspirational cleaning success stories at http://www.cleaning-success.com, and sign up for weekly cleaning tips at http://www.TheJanitorialStore.com.