Higher employee engagement has been linked to higher productivity, profitability and increased organizational efficiency.  With all those benefits – you’d think getting a budget for engagement initiatives would be easy?  Well – we’re about to help you make it even easier to get approval for your engagement initiatives.

Here are three best practices that any organization can implement at no cost.

1.  Face to Face Communication

We live in a world of virtual teams, email interaction and social-media chats.

If between 70-90% of all communication is non-verbal – those email chains are missing a big part of the picture.  It is much easier to build consensus in meetings, when you have the opportunity to read the body language of your audience.  It’s a better way to build rapport when people can be spoken “with” in a face to face interaction – rather than spoken “to” via email. Your management team can do more to build their employee communities, without spending a dime – if they are willing to put down the smart phone and have the meeting in person.

2.  Follow-up

Developing a strong habit of follow-up communication at all levels of the organization helps to build a larger sense of team.  When information is shared, and there is no feedback – the perception becomes that there has been no action and therefore, no point – it discourages any future sharing.  Follow-up on conversations can take the form of a status update, a way to close the loop on a situation, a check-in to see how the other person is managing, or even as a way to keep people accountable to agreed action plans.

3.  Recognition

Recognition does not have to come with an oversized novelty cheque – though, that might be a lot of fun, too.  Recognition can simply be a well-timed “thank you”.  Recognition is an effective development and engagement tool, in the right situations.  Help your management team develop their ability to provide motivating and genuine recognition.  Have cards on hand, to write a quick thank you note when someone has gone above and beyond.  Take some time, during a team meeting, to point out when someone has done a great job.  Focus on those specific behaviours that you want to see repeated; be detailed in recognizing the results of those behaviours, and try to find as many reasons for genuine recognition as possible.

If your organization could invest a little time on the interpersonal communications, the payoff down the road in loyalty and engagement will be more than worth it.  These practices never go out of style and can have a huge impact on your employee engagement – for no additional cost.