Four Ways to Boost Employee Engagement

 

Employee turnover in property management is inevitable. In fact, turnover in the property management industry has been steadily increasing by one percentage point per year. This is because employee engagement is rarely prioritized as much as other metrics like resident happiness and lease renewals.

The fact is, employee engagement cannot be ignored without consequences that affect NOI. If your employees aren’t engaged with company-wide goals, goals are less likely to be met. Additionally, your turnover rate will increase if employees are disinterested.

So, how can you improve employee engagement? Employee engagement essentially depends on company culture. If the company culture is disengaged, fragmented, and offers little opportunity for growth, employee engagement will be abysmal.

By building a positive company culture, employees are more likely to engage with their work and company-wide goals on a meaningful level. Here are four ways to boost employee engagement by building your company culture.

1. Normalize communication between employees and leadership

You can’t engage with something you don’t understand. If you want your employees to be more engaged, company-wide goals need to make sense to every employee including property managers and leasing agents. They have their own daily concerns, whether it’s keeping residents happy or chasing down leads. These employees need to know why they should care about the company’s goals.

Creating a time and space where lower level employees can communicate with senior employees is critical for engagement. Many employees don’t even know the names of people in leadership, and this makes them feel disconnected from the company and its values.

By introducing employees to leadership they’re more likely to understand big-picture decisions and engage with the company’s goals. Normalize communication between lower and upper level roles by holding quarterly or monthly meetings where lower and senior level employees can discuss big picture topics.

2. Help your employees understand what’s expected from them

Another way to increase employee engagement is by communicating to each employee how their role contributes to a company-wide goal. First, figure out how to adjust your team’s operations and behaviors to meet goals. Start by asking yourself these questions:

• What objective does each role contribute to?
• What do you expect to see your employees doing differently on a daily basis?
• What attitude shift is expected?

Once you have answers to the questions above, clearly communicate the results you hope to see from your team. Also, be sure to set expectations with measurable results. Without defined expectations and a way to measure progress, your employees will struggle to engage with and succeed in achieving goals.

3. Show appreciation to your engaged employees

Give recognition to engaged employees. Conduct regular performance reviews to applaud top performing employees and give visibility into those who are not performing as well.

Incentives and bonuses are great ways to show appreciation, but don’t forget to publicly acknowledge engaged employees around the workplace. Praise employees going above and beyond in a way that’s visible to the rest of the team. If employees see teammates appreciated for engaging with the company’s values and goals, they might be encouraged to do the same.

4. Give employees opportunities for growth

If you want employees to engage with your company, they need to know what opportunities lie ahead. Leadership development programs are becoming increasingly popular because they keep existing employees motivated and attract new talent looking to advance their careers. When comparing job opportunities, individuals are drawn to companies that promote from within. As a bonus, employees who are attracted to companies that foster growth from within are most likely to stick around!

With those two value-propositions in mind, why wouldn’t every company introduce leadership programs? The answer is, they require a good amount of effort to implement and maintain, but the results are more than worth it. With a comprehensive leadership program, new hires will be more motivated and existing employees will feel more engaged with your company.

Leadership development programs usually involve selecting a group of high-potential employees from all different levels to be mentored, trained, and coached for a promotion within the company. Leadership programs are very successful in preparing individuals for more robust roles and improving employee engagement with company values. By introducing a leadership development program, your company culture will shift from “I work this job to pay my bills and do what I want outside of work” to “I work this job to advance my career and open up opportunities for the future.” This shift in mindset personally motivates employees to go to work everyday.

Improving employee engagement is sure to impact your bottom line. If property managers feel motivated to come to work every day, they’re more likely to put in extra effort with residents and prospects. Happier residents and prospects means more renewals and new leases. Give your reputation a boost and increase profits by improving employee engagement.

Engage your employees by giving them the tools they need to succeed! Check out these articles to help your property management team be the best they can be:

Set Resident Happiness Goals
Improve Your Responses to Online Reviews

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