Employee engagement is more than a buzzword; it’s an important aspect of business and it can have positive effects on your auto repair shop. As a workplace philosophy, staff engagement is a management approach that emphasizes the importance of creating optimal conditions for employee success.
This is especially true in the auto industry: a study conducted in India found that prioritizing employee engagement in the automotive industry resulted in increased productivity, employee retention, client trust, and profitability.
With that in mind, how can you better engage your employees to improve retention and establish loyal working relationships?
3 Employee Engagement Ideas to Implement in Your Auto Shop
Create an Employee Engagement Strategy
Many employers overlook the need for creating an actual engagement strategy. The truth is that having a strategy will help you be more effective in engaging your employees and helping them to succeed. To get you started on coming up with your own strategy, here are a few easy employee engagement ideas you can adopt right now:
- Recognize when someone on your team has done an exceptional job
- Encourage them to uphold your company’s values when interacting with customers and when conducting behind-the-scenes work
- Make sure that they have the tools they need to succeed
Survey Your Employees
Getting feedback is an important part of being in business - but for many employers, the feedback loop ends with customer satisfaction surveys. This is a huge mistake. Checking in with your employees can provide you with crucial data to help you improve work practices, workflow, and overall shop culture.
The key to effectively measuring employee engagement lies in asking the right questions: approaching the survey strategically will allow you to get the most information out of it. Ask your employees to rate their overall understanding of their responsibilities, whether or not the management team values their input, and to describe the work culture of your shop. Once you have this data, you’ll have a better understanding of how your view of the shop aligns with your employees’ perspectives. Then you can begin to make changes in order to align the two.
Use Technology to Manage Talent
Online labor management software is the future. The increased use of tech in the workplace across all industries makes it easier to find, train, and retain talented people for your auto shop. Online platforms like BAYiQ can help you manage labor and create a more comprehensive, positive experience for your employees.
Some of the benefits of a good talent management software include:
- Increased flexibility for your administrative staff
- Improved communication between management and employees
- Strengthened leadership and feelings of ownership
- Better onboarding practices
- Consistent professional development and further training opportunities
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