Why would you want to engage employees? Employee engagement has a direct relationship to increased retention at your organization, helping you to minimize expensive turnover and replacement costs — up to 150% of the person’s salary. Engaged employees inspire others and make your organization stronger. Starting with your culture and right at the beginning of your relationship with any employee, provide the building blocks for a long-lasting culture of strong employee engagement.

1. Be clear about your culture at  initial interviews – that way future employees can understand the culture immediately and associate it with the brand, and those whom you shouldn’t hire can opt out if they know from the start that it’s not a cultural fit.
2. Match your hiring process to your culture – ensure that the way you hire reflects your culture. Do your multiple layers of interviews and questionnaires reflect a laid-back culture? Are you formal but you hire someone after the first meeting? Be consistent with your organizational culture so you aren’t giving someone a false impression.
3. Help new hires adapt to the new culture – interaction at events is vital for them to feel like they’re valued parts of the team. Whether it’s an employee luncheon or coffee with a supervisor, some guidance and team activities are important.
4. Understand who your employees are and how they are motivated.  Recognize and reward them as such, using their Predictive Index® results to guide you and personalize your approach to show that they’re cared for as individuals.
5. Provide acknowledgement, support and resources to employees – and don’t forget about the ones who’ve been around awhile. Engagement isn’t something you work on for a month and stop.
6. Ensure that you have regular and timely communications with employees so they feel like they’re included and receive information that’s important to them. While you might feel that you don’t need to share so much, they may. It is better to be open and transparent with frequency than the opposite.

Try these things to foster a culture where new as well as old hires feel included on the team. Even if you don’t keep many employees for more than 2-3 years, you’ll still benefit financially in many ways, including lowering turnover costs. With an inclusive, understanding culture that meets expectations of your employees, they’ll be more engaged and thus more productive.

 Article by Jeanne Ward.