13 Ways to Make Your Employees Stay and Boost Employee Engagement in Your Startup

The millennial workforce is notoriously popular for a frequent job change with their average stay in a company ranging between 18 months and three years. Retaining potential employees is currently one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face. And the challenge formidably doubles its course when the company is a startup. To retain your employees, you would first have to engage them. With fleeting attention and demand for quicker growth, employee engagement is not limited to an occasional lunch or excursion anymore. It has become a day-to-day process. Learn the best daily and occasional employee engagement practices for your startup here:

Everyday Engagement

1.Good Work Environment: From furniture to company culture, a good work environment is a primary approach to ensure employee engagement. Comfortable chairs, uninterrupted wifi, well-functioning coffee machines, flexible timings, the freedom to work from any room in the office (and from home), inclusivity, free flow of communication, all contribute to satisfactory employee experience.

2.Unique Onboarding Experience: Exercise employee engagement from the start. Create a different onboarding process for the new employees you are welcoming in your organization. Introduce gamification and prizes to make them enjoy, and at the same time, learn about the company. Provide fun facts or trivia about your startup.

3.Team Plan for Business Process: Irrespective of departments, involve all your employees in the business planning process. This not only opens you up to multiple ideas but also makes them realize that the organization and its growth is not a profit of one but everyone participating in its development.

4.Rewards and Recognition: Having an effective R&R program in your organization can double the engagement of your employees. You don’t need a special occasion to recognize someone for their hard work. A simple thank you mail or a “good job done” is like an invisible pat on the back that encourages employees to work harder for the company. While on one hand, building employee to employee appreciation establishes employee engagement, setting short term targets with rewards and prizes cultivates healthy competition.

5.Performance-based Promotion: Promotions based on performance works better in engaging employees than promotions based on tenure. Emphasizing hard work instills an air of transparency that inspires employees to work more. Obliterating the devil snare of office politics, it promotes trust between the employee and the company, establishes better communication, and creates mutual respect.

6.Learning Opportunities: Your company will grow only when your employees learn new skills and/or develop existing ones. Besides, organizing regular training sessions help to get rid of the monotony at work too. When your employees see that you are working for their growth, they will work for your organization’s growth.

7.Awareness of Financial Growth in Business: Most of the employees are unaware of the monetary benefits and losses of the company. Let your employees know the fruits of their hard work and how each of their contributions makes a difference in quantifying the profits of the organization.

8.Feedback: Ask for feedback – not only about whether they like working in your startup or not but also about what more can be done to improve the employee experience, the business and the gaps that they notice in the organization. Taking note of employee feedback and acting upon makes employees feel more committed to the organization.

Occasional Engagement

1.Surprise Half Day: Surprise your employees with a half day. Take them out on lunch or have a small party in the office itself. This not only shoots up productivity but also increases engagement.

2.Games: Sports events and quizzes are always a good way to boost communication, teamwork, and analyze how one thinks and strategies. Try the game of escape room in which employees have to solve puzzles and riddles through certain clues to go from one room to another. Tap into how each employee comes up with a unique solution to reach the final destination in the adventure so that you can understand their problem-solving strategies. Based on the right-brained and left-brained individuals in your startup, you can also come up with activities that involve both creativity and rationale. This will not only be a fun challenge but will also help in skill development.

3.Work Clubs: Similar interests bring people together and forge a friendship at work. According to SHRM, the more friends an employee has in their workplace, the less will they be interested in a change. Interest-based work clubs like writers archive, football fandom, artsy visuals, etc., work wonders to optimize employee engagement. It helps to bring people closer in an organization, lowers stress at work, and promotes creativity. Each work club can also collaborate amongst each other and come up with a monthly or quarterly in-house magazine.

4.Health Programs: Offering health and wellness programs in your startup increases employee engagement as it shows that you care for your employees. It can be anything, from inviting guest nutritionists in the organization for a general check-up to occasional fitness sessions, or promoting fitness breaks in between work. Your employees will be happy and grateful for all the wellness initiatives you take for them. Moreover, a healthy employee is also a more productive, proactive, and attentive employee.

5.Social Activities: Apart from being a good employee engagement tool, participation in social activities defines what you as an organization and a brand stand for. Whether gathering your employees to plant trees or donate study materials in children homes, social activities forge unity, fellow feeling, and a sense of pride amongst your employees.

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As an entrepreneur, you know how important your employees are, and you also know how to make them stay. Identify where and how you can make amends to augment your employees’ experience. Let your employees know that you value their hard work, their personal growth, and their health. Exercise these employee engagement practices is going to keep the best of your talents stay right where they are – in your company.