Employee engagement – due to the labor market situation and turnover pressures – has become so highly valued that in most companies we see a long list of measures to address the issue. The HR professionals responsible for this often run out of ideas to improve satisfaction indicators, and thus also run out of motivation to make further efforts.

The impact of these action lists is indeed limited, as they assume that motivation is something that people ‘lack’ and that it must therefore be somehow instilled in them from the outside. A real breakthrough can be achieved if we focus on igniting the dormant or unknown motivational drivers that exist inside of people.

In other words, we need to aim between people's ears and not elsewhere if we want to address the root causes of lack of commitment! This includes leaders, as they have the greatest influence on what goes on in people's minds.

Of the many options, we suggest you consider the following methods in particular:

• Employee satisfaction survey: Generally speaking, it is a good idea to assess the field first. The risk with this is that it also tends to result in a list of measures, and it is difficult to get to the root causes. If the subsequently listed items are not yet working well enough in your company, a comprehensive organizational survey may just misdirect your energies and be perceived as a substitute action.
• Who is responsible? We often see the responsibility for employee engagement being put on the HR area. It makes a big difference, though, what this actually means! While HR-coordinated benefits and other measures play a big role in satisfaction (keeping the people at the firm), it is the line manager who can do most to ensure engagement (eliciting maximum effort from people). It is another matter that line managers may not be aware of this or know what they are able to achieve. In such cases, they need HR support - but you can't do this instead of them.
• Motivation: The idea that motivation can be achieved by some external method – a “carrot or a stick” - is very much ingrained in the minds of most managers. The impact of these methods is, however, very limited. To develop motivation in a sustainable way, it is better to understand the nature of motivation, how it works in people's minds and what are the key leadership behaviors that can be used to influence it. In this context, leaders also acquire the skills to motivate themselves, which is key to doing the same for others. While this program addresses engagement in the most direct way, it is an advanced skill, so we suggest you don't use this as an initial program.
• SLII^®. Powering Inspired Leaders: Leading people situationally means giving them the leadership style they need to succeed. It is known to improve efficiency and productivity. It is less known that not giving people what they need leads to ongoing frustration, which precludes engagement.
• Coaching Essentials: This method is best known for helping to integrate the continuous development of our staff into our daily people management. Development is, of course, a motivator in itself. In addition, however, because it relies heavily on high-quality questions and active listening with presence, it also has the effect of giving your employee the space to express their opinions, suggestions, difficulties and concerns. This helps to vent any accumulated tensions (which could destroy their commitment) in a regular and constructive way. In other words, a coaching approach to leadership also helps to maintain engagement.
• Time and stress management: Time management is hardly a topic that first pops to mind when it comes to employee satisfaction. However, when we can't cope with the avalanche of tasks, messages, distractions, conflicting priorities and the frustration of just looking at our emails: it saps our energy bit by bit. It's easy to forget how much the amount of information we must process has increased in the last ten years. If people constantly feel like they're floundering and rarely have a real sense of achievement, it makes sense to start engagement development by helping them regain control of their lives. This will energize them and make the workplace more attractive to them.