Effective Employee Engagement for a Post-Pandemic Workplace

Many of you know how passionate I am about employee engagement, so I wanted to share with you some great ways to improve this vital issue in your MSP workplace. Implementing an effective employee engagement plan will greatly enhance your employees’ productivity, reduce employee absenteeism, and increase your profitability. A strong plan is especially critical as the workforce becomes more remote in the post-pandemic business world.

Consider this: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 50 percent of the United State workforce will be remote by 2027 and, of the current remote workers, 70 percent feel left out of the workplace. That unfortunate statistic must be reduced.

Our industry’s biggest challenge is a shortage of qualified engineers. Engineers are regularly dealing with irate customers and it’s very stressful. How do you keep them engaged and positive? It takes time to train a qualified engineer, so it’s important to retain them. Many future workers will be remote because there simply isn’t enough talented engineers in our local areas who can come to the office, so it’s even more critical to keep the remote employees happy and feeling like they are a part of the team.

Challenges your employees face

Before you implement an effective employee engagement initiative, you must be cognizant of the challenges that employees face.

Communication – How do you talk to them? How do you communicate internal news to them? They all want to be part of the whole ― and good communication can achieve that.

Expectations – What is expected of them and what do they expect from you? Are you giving them everything that they need to grow within the company, like education? Are you creating an environment that nurtures their success?

Trust – Do your employees trust that you and your leadership will recognize their hard work and reward it? Do they trust that you will be fair when you assess them?

Culture – Are you providing them with a welcoming, happy, and comfortable culture? Do they want to come to work on Monday morning?

Value – Are you recognizing them for the worth that they bring to the organization? Do they know their value to the company?

The benefits of engaged employees

An effective employee engagement plan will provide your MSP business with such benefits as:

Higher productivity – Happy employees work harder, produce better quality work, and provide a better customer experience.

Increased profitability – Those satisfied customers will then refer your company to prospects. This can translate to three times higher revenue growth for your MSP business.

Reduced absenteeism – Happy employees enjoy going to work, which has garnered businesses a 41 percent reduction in absenteeism.

How to effectively engage employees

Career development plan – Set realistic goals and a career development path early in the employee’s tenure. The career development shows them the growth possible if they stay with the company and be a quality employee. Here are some ways to accomplish this and they can all be executed online:

• Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relevant to each job role. KPIs are a good way to demonstrate for each employee how their responsibilities contribute to the company’s goals and how important the success of their job is to the overall success of the company.
• Set up monthly or quarterly performance reviews during which you should offer truthful and useful feedback of about three different performance areas. Use a scorecard to illustrate their strengths and weaknesses.
• Have learning opportunities available for your employees. Send them to industry conferences or enroll them in classes like those that we offer at IT By Design’s Build IT educational platform. They will greatly appreciate your support in growing their careers.

A communication plan – Everyone in your MSP should understand your business and their role within it. There are many ways to keep your employees connected in your business and create a community – such as internal emails, newsletters, internal portals, and messages from the President or CEO. This is especially needed to keep a remote workforce informed. It doesn’t require money, just time.

Engagement activities – Who doesn’t love a good activity? From fun online games to lunch ‘n learns via Zoom, these can help keep your team energized and build camaraderie between employees who may not work closely on a daily basis. One activity that we use is we created a “Wall of Wow”, which is a campaign to achieve a set monthly or quarterly goal of “Wow!” experiences from our customers. We send an email to our customers and ask them to send us an email when one of our engineers gives them a “Wow!” experience. We collect them and post them on a wall and, if the goal is reached, our team is recognized with a prize. For remote teams, this wall can be virtual on an internal portal. Either way, it creates a culture that acknowledges positive behavior and recognizes their hard work.

Remember: Everybody wants to be part of something bigger. It’s up to you to create the opportunity for your in-house and remote employees to feel like they are. If you don’t, you’ll have a team of unhappy employees – if they stay.