Employee engagement is not an overnight event. Although most employers recognize its benefits, many simply do not know where to start when it comes to promoting employee engagement.

One way to tackle this problem is to break down employee engagement into its core components. By understanding and targeting the drivers of employee engagement, you can develop an actionable strategy for boosting engagement across your organization.

Here are the core drivers of employee engagement –

#1: People

This includes leaders, the management team and your colleagues. When leaders and fellow employees share trust, respect, and common goals, the outcome is improved workplace trust and collaboration. Without positive relationships employee engagement is virtually impossible to foster.

Strong and positive relationships, among team members create an environment where employees feel safe expressing ideas, taking creative risks, and providing constructive feedback when necessary. These are integral components of an engaged workforce.

#2: Rewards

This refers to both compensation and non-monetary rewards. Let’s face it, no matter how passionate you are about your work, if you feel that your salary doesn’t reflect the effort that you’re putting in, you won’t be happy. And unsatisfied employees are disengaged employees.

And while compensation is an important part of keeping employees engaged, staff also need to feel that their work is recognized. In fact, 72% of company leaders rank employee recognition as one of the top drivers of employee engagement in the workplace.

#3: Opportunities

This employee engagement driver is all about opportunities for growth. Engaged employees see a clear, upwards career path within their organization. They’re aware of the necessary steps they need to take in order to grow and their motivation fuels engagement.

It is important to have ample professional development resources on offer for employees… At the same time, your professional development options need to correspond to employee interests.

#4: Work

Workload gauges whether an employee feels their responsibilities are manageable and in a broader sense, if work is fair and equally distributed across the team. If an employee feels overworked, under-appreciated, or as if others aren’t pulling their equal weight, their overall engagement levels are bound to fall.

Likewise, if a person feels overwhelmed, it feeds into a lack of safety, security, and trust. From a performance perspective, excessive workloads lead to inferior work as employees cut corners to make deadlines and meet their goals. Therefore, the workload engagement driver is imperative for both employee morale as well as performance standards.

#5: Quality of Life

80% of job seekers consider work-life balance a key criteria when looking for employment. And that’s not all. Recent studies have shown that employees who consider their job to have greater work-life balance work harder than those who don’t. That’s because employees who enjoy greater work-life balance don’t have to worry about lagging on personal priorities.

To be engaged in the workplace, employees also need to feel comfortable and safe. That means being confident that they don’t need to conceal a part of their identity or put all their energy and focus into pretending to be someone they’re not.

#6: Organization Reputation

This performance driver informs an employee’s perception of how well the organization is doing. If employees sense that their company is performing and has a good reputation, they’re naturally more ready, willing, and able to engage with their work.

If employees have a negative view of company performance – whether their perspective is accurate or not – it often leads to low overall morale, eventually affecting productivity.

Understanding and improving employee engagement can still be a daunting task. But when we have a tangible starting point, it makes things a bit easier.

That’s why it’s helpful to recognize the drivers of employee engagement and zero-in on each one to move your employee engagement strategy. Remember to constantly measure employee engagement to see whether your strategy is succeeding or if you need to make changes.