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How L&D Can Help Beat Employee Disengagement?

Many organizations are struggling with disengaged employees. Employees feel demotivated, lack a sense of belonging, and lack initiative. This problem has affected the current workforce and hampers their performance. But how do we tackle it? L&D teams play an important role to beat disengagement. Learning and development teams are there to provide support and facilitate learning. L&D teams aim to keep employees happy, motivated, and very importantly engaged.

Post pandemic, organizations have seen an increase in remote workers and hybrid workforce. While working at home, they might not feel as connected as they would if working at the office. Employees may feel isolated in the virtual environment and lack motivation. Keeping employees engaged is essential, there are a few ways to keep them engaged but before that let us understand a few reasons for disengagement.

  • Lack of clear goals and lack of connection with the big picture due to an ever-changing environment.
  • Digital fatigue because of working remotely and blurring home and work boundaries. They may also miss out on a forum and opportunities to share their ideas and views.
  • Employment and increasing proportion of gen Z in the workforce.

The above mentioned are a few of many reasons for the disengagement of employees. Employees may feel marooned or isolated or disconnected from that big picture which is one of the main sources of motivation for any employee and of course digital fatigue with the blurring of home and work boundaries. There are also many ways to increase the engagement of the employees and make them feel important in the organization.

Drive engagement and generate motivation and excitement in your training session by exploring our eBook

Ways to Increase Employee Engagement

Goal-Setting Workshops

Employees with a big picture in mind are more motivated and engaged. The lack of clear goals in this rapidly changing environment leads to a lot of confusion and demotivation among employees. Post pandemic, the way that organizations work has changed drastically, and it is important to keep employees in the loop.

Goal-setting workshops are a great way to give them more clarity. Learning & Development teams can conduct a goal-setting workshop at the personal employee level and link it with their own organizational goals and visions. Apart from goal-setting workshops, organizations can also conduct financial awareness and other educational workshops.  All of this will keep employees motivated and engaged.

Regular 1-1 Meetings

Setting up time for 1-1 meetings is also another way to engage employees. Apart from setting the goal-setting workshops, 1-1 meetings with employees will make them feel important and also allow them to share their views and ideas. 1-1 meetings or focus meetings are a great way to involve employees and make them feel important in an organization. Employees take it as an opportunity to share their concerns and personal views on things that might be the reason for their disengagement. Supervisors can take advantage of 1-1 or focus meetings to understand the issues that employees are feeling and make employees feel important and heard.

Start a Book Club

One very innovative idea is to start a book club. It is an economical but highly effective way of diffusing knowledge. Employees are encouraged to read books for personal growth as well as organizational growth. Books can be assigned to the team chapter wise and then the teams can assemble and share their understanding in a very brief PowerPoint presentation. Teams can then discuss these concepts and determine how well they can be implemented in the workplace. Also, what are those things which cannot be implemented and why So, the learning goes very deep because the engagement is very high.

A book club is also a great way for employees to connect apart from work. It will make them feel like an important part of the organization and also keep them engaged.

Focus on Millennials And Gen Z

Millennials and Gen Z are generations that now form the majority of the current workforce and will be a major part of the future workforce. Their perception, understanding, and their goals of work and career are very different from that of older generations. For them, work is just one minor part of their life and they want a lot of freedom, they want a lot of authority, and decision-making. Unlike the earlier generation where career is probably a very big component of their lives. They are a generation that needs challenges and opportunities to keep them motivated and happy and fulfilled. It is significant for L&D teams to focus on the modern workforce and find ways to keep them engaged.

Parting Thoughts

We have given you the tried and tested ways to increase employee engagement. L&D works very hard to keep employees motivated and engaged in this dynamic business world. With so many distractions and changes, it is easy for employees to get disengaged from the organization or their work. Every employee has different learning needs, and different learning formats can be used to meet those needs. Blended learning is one such strategy that offers multiple learning formats based of the learning needs. Grab our eBook and find out how blended learning will help you boost employee performance and drive engagement.

Blended Learning: A Guide to Boost Employee Performance