Engage Reluctant Employees by Building Confidence

Whether as leadership or laborers, we've all been a part of a company with limited employee engagement, and it's tough to grow your organization or meet lofty goals if your team members haven't bought into the success of the company. In my years of experience, I've found that the best way to build company engagement is through building individual confidence.

Environment of Learning vs Environment of Blame

The most effective way that I've found to build confidence among individual team members is to create an organization where people are allowed to make mistakes.

Making a mistake is not an inherently bad thing, especially if you treat mistakes as learning opportunities. Allowing team members to try something, fail, and then find their own solution to the problem lets people see what they can accomplish.

Of course, making similar mistakes continuously without striving to improve is not the goal. But giving your team the freedom to create their own plan without fear of punishment for missteps helps to build a culture with engaged employees who can get the job done without being micromanaged.

Currently at Unistrut Midwest, we are focusing this tactic on our middle management. In order to meet our company goals, we have identified that we need middle management to feel confident in leading their teams. We're building that confidence by empowering them to make as many decisions as possible.

By encouraging managers to create job plans, handle resource management, and prioritize customer needs, they grow their ownership over processes. Instead of being told what to do, our management team learns how to assess variables, create their own plan, and execute that plan. Through this, we are bringing confidence levels up and removing obstacles to individual and team success.

Encourage Personal Growth

While I'm currently the Chief Operations Officer of Unistrut Midwest, I am also a Certified Public Accountant. My accounting background was born from a true passion for finance, and I love helping people plan for their financial future.

I am committed to making sure that our team members are educated on their benefits and that they are properly planning for their retirement goals. These one-on-one conversations help to foster personal relationships, of course, but they are also another opportunity to build confidence among our team members. Encouraging people to ask questions, learn more about their options, and make educated decisions builds self-assurance that they can apply to both their personal life and their roles here at Unistrut Midwest.

Identify a Growth Mindset

It's important for leadership to create an environment where growth can happen, but having a team with the right mindset can make the efforts even more successful. Whether you're evaluating potential candidates or identifying existing team members who can encourage company engagement, it's important to find people who are eager to learn.

While industry experience is always important, my idea of a great team member is someone who has a wide range of experience in different roles, responsibilities, and even industries. This indicates curiosity, a willingness to try new things, and someone who isn't afraid to make mistakes in pursuit of an ideal process or solution. These are the people who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, people who are willing to ask questions, and people who are looking to make themselves and their business incrementally better.

By identifying such people in your organization, creating opportunities for them to learn both personally and professionally, and fostering an environment of encouragement instead of blame, I have found that you can significantly increase employee engagement and company success.

How do you encourage employee engagement in your company?