According to a recent study, employee engagement has fallen to a 10-year low, with only 31% of employees feeling engaged at work.
The statistic is worrying and shows an urgent need for companies to find ways to engage their employees; otherwise, they risk high turnover rates. But let’s face it—great ideas alone won't cut it. They need thoughtful implementation to truly engage your team.
This guide explores how to implement an employee engagement plan, including best practices to ensure its success.
Let’s get started!
What Is an Employee Engagement Plan?
An employee engagement plan is your intentional roadmap designed to genuinely connect your employees with your organization's mission and culture. It includes a detailed analysis of employees’ engagement needs and a step-by-step guide on meeting them.
An effective engagement plan fosters employees’ job satisfaction, motivation, and commitment, creating a strong emotional connection with the organization.
Why Employee Engagement Planning Matters
Here are the key benefits of developing and implementing an employee engagement plan:
- Proper Program Structure: Planning for employee engagement helps avoid random or one-off initiatives that don’t deliver long-term value. Instead, it is an opportunity to create a roadmap for what to do, when to do it, and how to do it to maximize employee engagement.
- Goal Alignment: Engagement planning ensures your initiatives align perfectly with your organization's wellness culture and strategic goals. For example, an employee engagement plan aimed at improving job satisfaction supports organizational goals of increasing retention rates.
- Proper Resource Allocation: Employee engagement planning involves budgeting, ensuring that resources are allocated to initiatives that offer the most value to the business.
- Stakeholder Buy-in: The planning phase allows the wellness committee to assess the employees’ lifestyle needs and wellness goals so that they are incorporated into the program. You’ll also gain essential buy-in from leadership by clearly demonstrating the value and positive impact of your engagement program.
- Effective Performance Tracking: Engagement planning lets you define program goals and performance KPIs in advance. This facilitates formative (during implementation) and summative (post-implementation) assessment to determine the program’s effectiveness.
Key Components of an Employee Engagement Plan
Employee engagement plans vary from one organization to another, depending on company size, structure, and goals. For example, hybrid companies often have to account for remote workers, which poses different challenges than fully on-site teams.
However, effective employee engagement strategies often have similar core components, as outlined below:
- Clear Objectives: A good employee engagement plan should identify specific engagement-related issues or challenges it intends to address. Examples include employees’ frustration with communication, recognition, or unclear career paths.
- Engagement Initiatives: The plan should outline how the company will enhance its employees’ engagement, such as through wellness programs, recognition schemes, career development opportunities, etc.
- Effective Communication: There should be a strategy for communicating the engagement plan to employees, including their role in making it a success.
- Tools and Resources: Utilize tools that simplify participation and encourage consistent employee involvement, ensuring the success of your initiatives. For instance, you might need to procure a fitness tracking app to help employees monitor their physical activity levels. You can then allocate resources accordingly.
- Performance Tracking: The employee engagement plan should outline essential metrics to be tracked to measure changes in workers’ satisfaction, morale, and organizational culture.
How to Create an Employee Engagement Plan Step by Step
Creating an effective employee engagement plan requires significant groundwork to get relevant stakeholders on board and ensure the plan’s success and long-term sustainability.
Below is an in-depth guide for designing and implementing a winning employee engagement plan:
1. Identify Employee Engagement Needs
Kick things off by genuinely listening—use surveys and open forums to deeply understand your employees' needs and wellness goals. For instance, you could ask employees to identify three lifestyle goals they’d want to achieve over the next year.
Also, host focus groups and have an open forum where employees can discuss workplace culture and engagement challenges.
2. Outline Engagement Goals
Leverage employee feedback from Step 1 to define crystal-clear engagement goals that resonate with both your employees and your organizational priorities. Suppose employees identify limited career growth opportunities at your organization. The proposed engagement plan should include ways to support their career development goals.
However, ensure the engagement goals also align with business objectives. For example, career development opportunities for employees also support a company’s ability to meet evolving business needs and build internal talent for future leadership roles.
3. Brainstorm Engagement Ideas
Engage relevant stakeholders (employees, departmental heads, and management) to identify engagement strategies that align with company goals.
Some engagement ideas include:
- Recognition and rewards programs
- Professional development and training
- Wellness challenges and team-building activities
Assess the feasibility of each idea to balance program expenses with the expected impact.
4. Assign Responsibilities
Elect a point person or team for each engagement activity. The team will be responsible for communicating the engagement plan to the employees.
Lastly, engage top leadership to secure their buy-in and to serve as models (inspiring employees to undertake the engagement initiatives).
5. Build the Employee Engagement Program
This is where your employee engagement plan turns into ‘tangible,’ measurable action steps.
Suppose you want to introduce a corporate wellness program to foster team-building and camaraderie. It would be time to identify a corporate wellness company to help you tailor the program to individual employee needs.
Additionally, consider thoughtful wellness gifts for employees to celebrate their milestones and achievements.
At SoHookd, we offer pre-built, à la carte, and custom programs to help you introduce your employee engagement plan quickly. Our product packages cater to your employees’ lifestyle needs, including health, fitness, mental health, and self-care. Some core features include:
- Live and on-demand wellness webinars
- Challenges to stimulate employee engagement
- Marketplace where employees can redeem gifts
Ready to get started? Schedule a personalized demo to see exactly how SoHookd's wellness programs keep your employees motivated, happy, and thriving.
6. Implement the Strategy
Roll out your engagement initiatives thoughtfully, ensuring each step inspires enthusiasm and active participation from your team. Also, provide necessary support, such as training and resources, to ensure employees utilize the engagement programs.
With SoHookd programs, we leverage psychology-backed wellness incentives to drive participation and help employees and organizations achieve desired outcomes.
Bonus: Download our free ebook to learn the secret to using wellness gifts to boost employee engagement.
7. Monitor Progress and Adjust
Track key performance indicators (KPIs), such as participation rates, employee feedback scores, and retention rates, regularly.
For example, you could evaluate employee sentiments on a monthly basis to determine changes in job satisfaction levels. Also, regularly seek candid feedback from employees—it's your best tool for continuously refining and enhancing your engagement plan.
Employee Engagement Action Plan Examples
Next, let’s outline a few examples of employee engagement plans to help keep the team motivated and committed to your organization:
Example 1: Boost Employee Morale
Here’s a practical example of how to implement an employee engagement plan to keep your workforce in high spirits:
Employee Engagement Goal: Improve job satisfaction scores by 30% over 12 months.
Performance Measures: Pre- and post-surveys, participation and completion rates, and feedback forms.
Program Initiatives:
- Award the employee of the month.
- Organize bi-weekly wellness challenges.
- Host monthly live wellness webinars on mental health and self-care.
Example 2: Career Development Opportunities
The example below highlights what to consider when implementing an engagement plan to foster your employees’ career development:
Employee Engagement Goal: Increase participation in professional development programs by 40% over 12 months.
Performance Measures: Enrollment in training, completion rates, and post-training evaluations.
Program Initiatives:
- Expert-led live and on-demand professional webinars every other month.
- Provide a stipend to help employees pay for online courses.
- Offer wellness incentives for employees who reach the required continuing professional development (CPD) points.
Best Practices for Employee Engagement Planning
Developing an employee engagement plan is only one part of the job. You must also ensure the plan’s success and long-term sustainability until you achieve the desired outcomes.
Use our cheatsheet below to streamline your employee engagement process:
- Outline Clear Engagement Goals: Define SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) goals so you can track progress easily. Also, clear goals provide focus and facilitate alignment across teams.
- Engaged Employees from the Start: Involve employees in all steps of the engagement plan, so they buy into the vision. Also, collect employee feedback regularly and incorporate their suggestions into the plan.
- Prioritize Initiatives Based on Impact: Implementing a wellness program that caters to all aspects of employee engagement is often capital-intensive. As such, start with the core employee engagement initiatives, then add the rest incrementally.
- Plan for Change Management: It is human nature to resist change, even where the benefits outweigh the status quo. As such, establish a plan for getting members on board, which could include publishing brochures and sending emails outlining the benefits of the proposed engagement plan.
- Personalize for Impact: Group your employees by their unique engagement needs, creating tailored plans that resonate deeply and drive meaningful participation. For example, you can plan for employee engagement based on relevant demographics, such as age, department, and work style (remote vs. on-site teams).
- Incorporate Wellness Incentives: There are two ways to include incentives in your employee engagement plan. The first is to recognize and reward employees who hit personal and career milestones, like birthdays or five years at the company. Secondly, thoughtfully integrate wellness incentives into challenges, amplifying engagement through meaningful, personalized rewards.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Let’s wind up this guide by answering commonly asked questions about employee engagement planning:
How Does Wellness Fit into an Employee Engagement Plan?
Wellness forms the heart of employee engagement planning—it directly influences how employees feel, perform, and engage deeply with their roles.
For example, physical and mental wellness boosts employees’ morale and productivity, which helps them stay focused. Also, wellness helps create a positive work culture and environment, which makes employees feel seen, valued, and appreciated.
Can Small Businesses Create Effective Engagement Plans?
Yes. Small businesses can create effective engagement plans to help keep employees motivated and committed to company goals.
Additionally, small businesses can leverage their employee engagement plans to retain their top talent, considering they may not always be able to offer competitive compensation.
How Often Should You Update an Engagement Plan?
There is no limit to how often you should update your employee engagement plan. Some companies review their engagement plans quarterly, while others do it annually.
However, we recommend evaluating employee sentiments every three to six months and retention rates yearly for insights on refining the engagement plan.
What Tools Help Build an Employee Engagement Plan?
There are various tools you could use to build an employee engagement plan. Examples include:
- Survey Tools: ThriveSparrow, Qualtrics, and Officevibe
- Recognition and Rewards Platforms: SoHookd Marketplace, Retreat Yourself, and FabFitFun
- Collaboration Tools: Slack, Connecteam, and Microsoft Teams
Conclusion
Companies that experience exceptional employee retention rates (90-95%) know one important thing: you must engage your employees as a going concern to keep them happy and motivated. Investing in a strong employee engagement plan doesn't just retain your top talent—it transforms your workplace into one that continually attracts new talent.
At SoHookd, we help companies implement wellness programs to boost employee morale, productivity, and holistic well-being. Our packages include dedicated, hands-on support to help you track employee participation and manage the rewards system.
Let's elevate your engagement strategy together—book your personalized call today and discover how SoHookd can transform your team's well-being and productivity.
