Do you have a great employee engagement programme that isn’t being used? Are your employees avoiding engaging in the systems you have set up?

It’s tricky isn’t it. You have everything lined up, but you’re not getting the response you had hoped for.

With employee engagement you can boost company innovation, motivation, productivity and happiness. The first hurdle though, is getting that all important engagement.

Here are 8 smart ways to encourage employee voice:

1. Let Your Employees Know About Company Direction & Progress

If your employees are informed they can provide insightful ideas and suggestions as business strategy progresses. If you share information about the business, it essentially gives staff a talking point. Whether you use posters, an intranet, email newsletters or face to face meetings, sharing these insights sets a standard of sharing that employees will hopefully buy into, and get involved with.

1. Provide Feedback Links

Try to include feedback links wherever you can to make feedback as easy as possible. The easier it is for employees to share, the more likely they are to do it.

1. Make Employee Voice The Norm

If your business has not valued employee voice before you may need to do a little groundwork to make it a normal part of your culture. Explain, inform and communicate to build trust and help employees understand why you’re making these changes. Make sure you emphasise what is in it for them, which is an important motivator when you are asking more from your staff.

1. Celebrate All Ideas

Whatever suggestions you get, you need to acknowledge them and celebrate them. This will only encourage staff to continue to submit suggestions, because they will feel valued.

1. Use Technology

Some people are turned off by the idea of face to face feedback sessions. You can use technology to enable those people to provide their feedback. Perhaps you can offer a dedicated email, or anonymous surveys. As we mentioned above, the easier it is for everybody to give feedback, the more likely they are to do it.

1. Establish Trust

Employees are only likely to provide feedback if they feel safe to do so. Reiterate how feedback will be handled, and reassure staff that there will be no repercussions when it comes to negative feedback.

1. Develop Natural Chat

Your employees already naturally chat about important topics, the problem is you’re not getting that data to boost business. Employee forums with specific topics to discuss are a great way to get those chats ‘on paper’. Employees get to feel heard and log their comments, whilst employers get to see those comments and hold on to that data. Updates can be posted in the same forums for continuity.

1. Offer Incentives

Incentives for feedback are a great idea, even if they are very small. Do be careful how you go about this as rewards have to be fair and seen to be so. It is also important to align the rewards with company goals as over half of employees feel current rewards strategies are not aligned with the overall goals of the company.

With the right incentive programme in place, you could well see your employee engagement boosted.

“Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.” -

Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

The ideas above are just some of the many ways to encourage employee voice. With the right approach, and a boost in engagement, you will see positive changes in your company processes and overall worker satisfaction and happiness.