The Best Way to Get Your Team Engaged

Engaging your team is important if you want to keep them on board. Sometimes the leadership team thinks that because they aren’t hearing much from their employees that everything is fine. However, this generally isn’t the case. Perhaps your team members are either scared to approach their line managers to discuss issues or are quite passive or perhaps they don’t really care anymore. Either way they are not engaged or energised in their work. If you want your team members to go the extra mile for you, then you need to give them support.

What is the best way to engage with my team?

The traditional reward for good performance is a pay rise and while most team members would welcome this, the leadership team needs to give that little bit extra to particularly strong employees. Pay rises might boost performance for a period of time, but they don’t tend to generate sustained levels of engagement from your team. When it comes to engaging with your team, the ability to listen is key. Listening is defined as the act of hearing attentively, or to hear with intention. It is not just nodding along while half concentrating on what the other person is saying. If listening is so powerful, then why do so many businesses and their leadership teams do so little of it when it comes to listening to employees?

The ability to listen is a very powerful asset. The best managers and business executives don’t necessarily have all the answers. Often, the ideas they employ are not their own. However by listening to their people and choosing the best ideas produced by their team, they can make decisions that can potentially move the whole business forward. Very often, the people who are considered to be the best communicators are the ones who listen to others.

Why is this?

Maybe it is because people like listeners, and leaders who are great listeners are often great leaders. Employees want to know that their voices are heard, and that they matter to the firm. Nothing is more frustrating for team members than to come to work in a place where they are treated like a number.

The untapped resources and ideas locked in the hearts and minds of your team could be worth a lot to your business. A great manager or leader is the one who unlocks and taps into the brilliant minds of their employees by listening.