If you’re not doing anything intentional to promote your team’s engagement, don’t worry. For one thing, you may be doing unintentional things that are keeping your team engaged. To find out, ask them or partner with a third party to gather honest feedback. There are also several engagement surveys out there, no matter how small your organization or budget may be.
When you’re starting to consider addressing employee engagement in a more formal way, get in the right mindset first. Think or talk through why you’re interested and what you hope to accomplish. Be brutally honest with yourself. Did a team member suggest it or did you read about it somewhere? Have you been noticing issues like absenteeism, tardiness, or a general lack of motivation to meet practice standards? These can all be related to low engagement. At the very least, it can’t hurt to show that you’re working to provide a work environment where people feel listened to, safe, and valued.
Even if you feel comfortable addressing this topic on your own, it’s a good idea to do some research. Start with a mix of the big leaders in engagement research, like Gallup or the National Business Research Institute, and survey templates from a slew of businesses that are all geared toward creating engagement solutions for small businesses. Get input from trusted colleagues, your professional organizations, and others who know the aesthetic industry or have addressed employee engagement in their organizations.
This is an important decision, so do whatever you can to ensure it’s the right one for your practice.
Once you’ve found a solution that fits, remember that asking for feedback can bring all kinds of responses. There’s no way to know exactly what people will say, but you can know how you’ll handle it by preparing your mindset and having a plan. Spend time outlining what you’ll do, how you’ll communicate the idea to your team, and how the information will be handled. One of the most important aspects of all this is to show your team that you are genuinely interested and are going to take constructive action on their feedback to improve your practice.