Engagement is a huge problem in the American workforce. National polling organization Gallup has been tracking these trends for years. They say only 32% of the workforce is engaged and satisfied in their work. Job disengagement leads to stagnant productivity and a workforce that isn’t as innovative. How can employers tackle our national disengagement problem? By creating an environment where employees step out of their comfort zones.
How Can You Get Your Employees Out of Their Comfort Zone?
How to Challenge Your Employees in 2022
Reengaging your workforce starts with creating a work environment where employees can excel. Allowing your employees an environment where they feel comfortable stepping outside of their comfort zone is a good way to reengage them. How can you do this?
The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) interviewed HR experts and they came up with a few ways to change your culture to encourage employees to step outside of the box they’re in. Their suggestions included:
- Opening the door to new ideas. Listen to your workforce. Challenge your teams to come up with new and innovative ways to improve how they work. This will freshen jobs that have grown stale, engage the employee in the success of the organization, and generate more productive ways of accomplishing tasks.
- Encouraging learning. Employers should create a culture of learning. Managers should talk to employees about learning new things as part of their job. This can help grow and advance your workforce. It will go a long way toward retaining your existing teams; 94% of employees say they would stay in their existing job if employers just invested in reskilling them.
- Allowing mistakes to happen and offering help in improving. What employees will step outside their comfort zone if you penalize them when they make a mistake? Take care of your workforce and they will take care of your company.
- Leading by example. Managers should be transparent about their efforts to learn new things and the trepidation they feel when they do. At the same time, your team of supervisors should be actively engaged in learning new things and talking about it openly to create a culture of expansion and growth.
- Engaging your workforce in goal creation. When was the last time you talked with your employees about their goals with your company? Do you only impose goals from the top-down? That’s a bad approach if you want employee buy-in. Instead, sit down regularly with your employee to talk about where they see their career with your company in three years, five, or even longer.
- Rewarding your employees regularly will give them the courage they need to try new tasks. Go for more carrots and fewer sticks and you’ll create a culture where trying to improve is the norm.
- Offering goal-based bonuses is a great way to push your employees in a way they’ll appreciate. Striving towards a goal with a monetary value will naturally force employees to change their behaviors if they want to succeed. It’s a good way to encourage your workforce to step outside their comfort zone to reach the brass ring reward.
Are You Pushing Your Employees to Get Out Your Comfort Zone?
FoxHire is in the business of tracking and managing employees and data. Our state-of-the-art employer of record (EOR) hiring platform allows managers to see at a glance the status of their workforce. But FoxHire, as an EOR, does all of the heavy lifting around employee management. This allows you to focus on retaining existing employees and improving culture. Call on us to find out how we can improve your business.
