Gallup tells us how to engage employees in 2024

Gallup has released a “2024 Employee Engagement Strategy Checklist” in which it tells us that 44% of employees worldwide say they are stressed and proposes some things that organisations can do to get people more engaged and less stressed. 

Here is Gallup’s list:

1. Check in on your managers because they are more likely to be feeling burned out and stressed and you need them to feel supported and capable of leading their people effectively.
2. Prepare managers to have meaningful conversations with employees in which they recognise strengths and achievements, set and refine goals and priorities and support then in relationships and collaboration.
3. Prioritise promoting vision and purpose, especially among remote workers for whom Gallup’s research says that only 28% feel connected to their organisation’s mission and purpose.
4. Measure engagement to show employees that you care about their feedback and want to know how they are doing.
5. Take action on survey results – nothing builds positive momentum for an engagement initiative more than asking for feedback, doing something about it and sharing and celebrating positive results.

They say that their research shows that 80% of employees who say they have received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged, regardless of how many days they worked in the office.

When it comes to having meaningful conversations with employees, Gallup said that they should include:

1. Recognition or appreciation of recent work
2. Collaboration and relationships
3. Current goals and priorities at work
4. Employee strengths and the things that they do well

How long should these conversations be? If they are done regularly (ie weekly), they should take no longer than 15 to 30 minutes.

Our EngageMentality Model

This is a continuous coaching model which incorporates all of the features that Gallup recommends plus more.

We did our own research on the things that we believe impact on an employment experience and by extension employee engagement and wellbeing – these “coaching lenses” are:

1. Roles  – the job that I do plus any of those other responsibilities that I might take on as a leader or an employee or safety representative or first aider, etc
2. Relationships – I rely on certain people for certain things and others rely on me for certain things
3. Values and behaviours – the behavioural attributes that we want to see practised in our organisation to make it respectful, inclusive and high performing
4. Strengths – using the VIA Character Strengths framework to use a strengths-based approach which optimises opportunities for me to use my signature strengths and to work on and be supported with my lesser strengths
5. Wellbeing – using the PERMAH workplace wellbeing survey, build on my psychological safety, life balance and overall wellbeing. 

We explore and address each of those items through a process of:

1. Positioning – doing a stocktake of where I sit in each of those areas
2. Planning – identifying the actions that I want to take for my performance and development, timelines for doing that and supports that I need and any people who are involved
3. Performing – implementing my plan and catching up with my manager each week for a coaching session
4. Presenting – providing me with the opportunity to showcase my achievements in performance and development and areas for further development 

The coaching conversations simply involve asking and answering these 4 questions in the context of each of the 5 coaching lenses:

1. What has worked well (celebrate)?
2. What has been a struggle (recalibrate)?
3. What has changed (update)?
4. What are we going to do about all of that (activate)?

If you would like to explore our EngageMentality process or any other of our PosWork programs for your workplace, please call us on 1300 108 488 or email info@poswork.com.au.