As defined by Gallup, “[The employee experience] includes everything from major milestones and personal relationships to technology use and the physical work environment. It’s the big picture that ties together all of your efforts to attract, engage, and develop your employees. The employee lifecycle includes seven stages that employers must get right for a consistent employee experience: attract, hire, onboard, engage, perform, develop, and depart.”
The employee experience directly contributes to the effectiveness and performance of your business. As a leader, it’s imperative you understand your impact on this journey and be intentional about the culture you’re building. When it comes to remote team members this is even more important.
We had the chance to dig into this topic with Jennifer Clarkson and Kaleem Clarkson of Blend me at our recent webinar. In addition to access to the full recording, we’ll also share with you some of the key takeaways we left with our viewers and participants.
1. Engaged employees mean greater effectiveness and productivity
Before discussing employee engagement, Jennifer and Kaleem shared with everyone Gallup’s definition of the term: “An engaged workplace is a place where people come to work knowing what is expected of them, feeling connected to the people they work with, and working in an environment where they want to be.” By creating such an environment for your team, you’ll maximize effectiveness and productivity as well as reduce the costs associated with employee turnover and absenteeism.
Here are some statistics on workplace engagement that illustrate the importance:
- Disengaged employees cost US companies approximately $550 billion per year resulting from turnover, absenteeism, burnout, and low levels of wellness (The Engagement Institute)
- Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability (Gallup)
- Highly engaged business units achieve a 10% increase in customer ratings and a 20% increase in sales (Gallup)
2. Workplace engagement impacts the bottom-line
In the book “Employee Engagement 2.0,” author Kevin Kruse illustrates how workplace and employee engagement directly impact your business’ bottom line. The ROI of engagement, he states, comes from the Engagement-Profit Chain.
3. Engaging remote employees requires extra effort
The remote and distributed members of your organization are, naturally, more likely to feel excluded from team members co-located in headquarters. In fact, two trending complaints from the remote workforce according to a global WorkplaceTrends study are:
- Isolation and loneliness
- Lack of facetime with coworkers
Facetime matters, and so does making a regular — even daily — habit of connecting with your team. (We talk about this on the Range blog.) Develop practices and procedures that are more inclusive of all team members; “One remote, all remote!”
4. Relationship building must be prioritized
We’re interdependent creatures who rely on human connections, but today we’re spending less time with others than ever before. And research out of BYU even suggests that social isolation may be one of the biggest risk factors for human mortality.
Make space for team-building and to regularly connect with your remote and distributed team members. Consider instituting check-in rounds during one-on-ones and recurring meetings, and check out tools like Donut and Icebreaker.
Want to learn more about how you can enrich the employee experience at your organization? Get in touch with Jennifer and Kaleem. Blend me, Inc. is an internal marketing and engagement firm that helps cultivate the employee experience for organizations with a remote workplace.
And if you’re looking to join an online community of remote and distributed workers, consider applying to RemotelyOne. RemotelyOne is a members-only community for remote workers who wish to meet and connect with other location-independent professionals. Help us end remote-work loneliness. Apply today!
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