Managers and supervisors do not engage their employees. Employees engage themselves.
Managers and supervisors can (and should) give employees abundant opportunities to engage. That
engagement, please remember, can be in related areas: job, career, networking, company, community, and possibly more. All engagement benefits the business.  [If this sounds familiar, you read something very much like it in my Cutting to the CORE posting, 02/05/08.]

Some employees
find engagement even without persuasive opportunities . However, a significant number of employees need the persuasion engagement opportunities provide.

Engagement opportunities produce “engagement benefits.” As you read each engagement benefit in the following list, pause a few seconds and consider how this
can occur for your company.

Engagement Opportunities will

•  Generate employee engagement in general.
•  Generate employee’s engagement in a specific area.
•  Stimulate
  communication between employee and manager/supervisor.
•  Enhance
  teamwork among employees.
•  Improve
  customer/client/patient satisfaction and loyalty.
•  Encourage
  creative and innovative thinking.
•  Improve
  employee performance.
•  Provide
  tactical benefits: recruitment, retention, productivity, safety, and more.

So, what type of engagement opportunities do I mean?  Here are a few:

• Projects: Invite individuals/teams to involve themselves in job-related, career-enhancing, company-promoting, network-building, or community-supporting endeavors. These may be activities suggested/created by employees themselves. These should not be merely "add-on" assignments.
• Incentives: Material rewards for meeting performance goals stimulate short-term engagement. (See this posting.)
• Team Competitions: Human nature is competitive. Team involvement is motivational and fun. Create–or allow your teams to create–healthy competitive involvements.
• Celebrate Targets: Recognition of achievement can be its own reward. A visual display of progressive goal achievement, for individuals, teams, departments provides the opportunity for engagement.
• Forums: Meetings allowing individuals to share experiences, accomplishments, difficulties, etc. can serve any/all of the engagement areas: job, career, company, network, community. See the Opportunity Knox posting, for examples.

What else comes to your mind? Remember, your ideas are the best ones. You already own them.

Check out this Engagement Opportunity Template (pdf) for an easy-to-use tool.

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Tags: Employee Engagement, engagement opportunity, Management