At a time when employee engagement is drastically declining, companies have no choice but to find new solutions or tools that will help them cope with this phenomenon.
In today’s short interview, on the topic of how companies can increase employee engagement, we talk to Ivana Dojčinovska Stojanović, People Management Consultant and Career Development Expert. Boban M. Ilijevski spoke with her.
Rabotnik.mk: Will companies need to find new solutions and use new tools to increase employee engagement?
Dojčinovska Stojanović: Engagement is a positive state of the employee in which he feels an emotional connection to the work and the organization, and brings large amounts of his own capacity to the performance of the work. Engagement occurs in response to the conditions that the work environment provides for creating a creative and safe workplace in which the employee feels valued, respected, and useful.
The latest developments in the labor market, especially after the COVID pandemic, show a decrease in the engagement rates of the global workforce. The engagement rate on European soil has declined in particular. This is due to the major changes in the way of working, to which organizations must quickly adapt by introducing fundamental changes in processes, business models, but, above all, in the treatment of the people who work with them. Another important reason for the change in engagement lies in the significantly changed perception of people about their career and personal development. New generations are less and less identified with joint labor in the sense of large corporate systems and are looking for ways to create value in independent relationships with companies (as freelancers, external collaborators) or in smaller creative teams. Freedom, flexibility, and personal development are the new imperatives of the world of work.
Rabotnik.mk: What tools or solutions will they need to use to increase their engagement?
Dojčinovska Stojanović: In addition to the trendy new solutions that appear every day, however, let’s not leave out the already well-known, but essentially necessary, prerequisites for encouraging engagement. Companies should continue to develop the following conditions even more intensively:
• Quality workplace – challenging, but achievable goals, stress to the point of learning, avoiding repetition and routine, applying high standards in work, quality workforce – collaborators, autonomy in performing work, etc.
• Healthy work environment – peaceful work environment, positive organizational climate, flexible place and time to work as much as processes allow
• Good leaders – professional management with leadership and coaching skills
• Personal development – the opportunity to choose career paths and personalized support for acquiring new skills
• Fair financial and non-financial rewards and benefits, appropriate to market conditions and constantly adjusted to the cost of living.
Rabotnik.mk: What are the trends and innovations that will emerge in the area of employee engagement?
Dojčinovska Stojanović: Providing good working conditions is becoming increasingly complex for organizations. Employees expect to receive individual attention and conditions that are tailored to their needs. Recently, the number of factors that are added to the list of standard prerequisites for engagement has been constantly growing. The once simple formula for creating a quality work environment now has many new sensitive points, embedded in the concept of the “employee experience” from the first contact during recruitment to leaving the organization. The most important thing that organizations must do is to rethink the way they create jobs and practices, from the former “one size fits all” to “an individually tailored set of conditions for each individual”. This, above all, requires opening strong channels for constant communication with each employee, providing professional care and advice for everyone, and of course a lot of flexibility to adapt systems to people’s individual needs. A good example of trendy innovations is, for example, the application of interactive communication platforms managed by artificial intelligence, through which an employee can directly receive personalized solutions for some of their needs. Another increasingly common novelty are platforms for awards and recognition, which enable multi-directional communication of a huge number of people, who can praise, thank, evaluate, and reward themselves. Speaking of rewards, they have long since become personalized – more developed companies allow employees to choose their own form of compensation or reward for a certain performance.
Originally published in 2023 on rabotnik.com.mk
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