Employee Engagement | Strategies for Keeping Remote Workers Motivated at Startups

If you have more than one employee, you should focus on employee engagement. Engagement is vital for startup success, driving higher profitability, and productivity. Within this article, we discuss key strategies to improve your employee experience, and not with cookie-cutter solutions. We recommend customized solutions and leaning into your company values and goals to drive employee experience within your organization.

Employee Engagement | Strategies for Keeping Remote Workers Motivated at Startups

by Brit Ross, Head of People

  Employee engagement doesn’t start at employee number 20, it starts at your first hire!

Importance of Employee Engagement for StartupsEmployee engagement is more than just a buzzword; it’s a critical factor in the success of any organization, especially startups. It refers to how much employees care about your company and their work. According to Gallup, companies with highly engaged teams see 23% higher profitability. For startups, where the fundraising environment is tough and every team member’s contribution is vital, ensuring high engagement can be the difference between success and failure.With U.S. employee engagement at an 11-year low, according to a recent Gallup report, the drop is particularly notable among younger employees, remote workers, and those who work exclusively on-site. This trend underscores the need for startups to prioritize and continuously improve their employee engagement strategies to maintain a motivated and productive workforce.Understanding Employee Engagement & ExperienceThe key to an engaged workforce is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Employee engagement is the emotional commitment and connection an employee feels towards their organization, work, and team. Engagement varies within each company, so standardized processes from one organization may not work for another.To drive engagement, you need to understand your employee experience and what makes employees care about the company. Employee experience begins with initial interactions during the job application process. Positive employee experiences lead to higher engagement, driving increased productivity and profits.Do you have a clear picture of your employee experience? Here are a few questions to consider:

Does your team align with your company values?Do your managers set clear expectations and align them with organizational goals?What does your onboarding process look like? Is it comprehensive and welcoming for all new hires?How is feedback managed within your company?Are your managers trained to deliver a positive employee experience?

Building Your Employee Engagement Strategy

Now that you understand employee experience as a key driver of engagement, let’s dig into where to start when building a strategy to improve your employee engagement. We’re not talking about increasing snack stipends or raising salaries—those provide temporary excitement but quickly fizzle out if the experience doesn’t change.

Here’s a breakdown to make the most impact:

Kick Off an Engagement Survey: Engagement surveys are effective tools to measure and understand the state of your employees’ engagement. Running an annual comprehensive engagement survey helps you identify where to start improving engagement.Measure Your eNPS: Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a metric that tracks the success of your engagement strategy.Analyze Your Results: After completing your first survey, analyze the different triggers causing a decline in employee experience. Understanding these triggers helps you build a customized plan to improve your team’s experience.Tackle High-Impact Opportunities: As a startup, you can’t solve everything at once. Focus on engagement improvement projects that will provide the most impact to your team.Maintain Transparency in Your Engagement Strategy: Share your engagement survey results with the team and explain the “why” behind your prioritization of projects. Your team does not expect you to fix everything at once; they want to be heard, they want you to acknowledge awareness around opportunities, and they want you to follow through on your commitments.

How airCFO People Advisory Can Support

Measuring and building a strategy for employee engagement is not an easy task, but you don’t need an in-house People Operations team to prioritize and focus on understanding and driving improvement. airCFO People Advisory can support you by helping measure and understand your employee engagement, developing a customized engagement strategy that fits your culture, and supporting you throughout engagement projects.