Picture this. Your team has had a huge day on the floor, they hit their sales targets, and then some. As a manager, you're high fiving. You must be doing something right, right? But how are the team feeling at the end of such a huge day? Did you get a chance to sit down with them individually before they rushed out at the end of their shift?
Realistically, who has the time? However, while you're thinking everyone is thrilled with the sales results, conversely, the team might be thinking "this pace is not sustainable". Without a formal line of communication, a fracture can be created and, over time, if the sentiment remains the same, your team becomes a flight risk.
Staff who are engaged with their work are happier, more motivated, less likely to leave, and more willing to go above and beyond. In the hospitality industry, employee turnover is north of 70% and low staff engagement is one of the main contributors to this.
For business owners, the cost of employee turnover is high and increases exponentially according to skill level. A Griffith University study (2009) reported that employee turnover costs $5,000 for a food and beverage waiter and $10,000 for a chef. For every $1 a business invests into making a more mentally healthy workplace, in the long term they recouped on average $2.30, a Beyond Blue Report (2014) found.
Employee engagement is for all businesses, big and small
Whilst it's traditionally been a luxury only afforded to corporate businesses, at Deputy, we believe every business should have access to a tool that measures team engagement.
From our own experience, investing in an employee engagement tool has had a phenomenal impact on our company culture.
"You can't improve what you can't measure" counsels Chloe Sesta Jacobs, Global Director of Inclusion and Engagement at Deputy, "using engagement surveys has enabled us to make positive and impactful changes that have seen our engagement climb 27% in fifteen months! Not only have we been able to construct powerful narratives around how our people are feeling from data, but their comments and feedback have also provided deeper insights for leadership to be able to respond in a meaningful way."
Understanding the impact positive employee engagement has on businesses, we wanted to provide a simple way for our customers to capture continuous feedback from their employees that can be actioned before it snowballs.
Give your team a voice, after every shift
With our Shift Engagement feature, every team member has the option to let their manager know how they feel before they clock off their shift using a simple emoji rating scale (Happy, Good, Okay, Frustrated, Stressed).
"Team members also have the opportunity to provide valuable shift comments anonymously, to give additional context to their emoji if they'd like to share" said Kiran who developed the feature as part of the Deputy Diversity, Equity & Inclusion passion project.
Turning emoji's into insights at the manager's fingertips
Research shows that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement scores, "we believe that we can close that gap by providing team engagement insights that are captured at the end of every shift — so all managers have an equal chance of knowing how their team is feeling and making changes to help them run a highly engaged team" said Kiran, Principle, Product Manager at Deputy.
The manager view provides a weekly averaged score of the team's shift engagement rating. Over time, this data can be compared to previous weekly averages to identify trends, and those trends can be turned into meaningful conversations with the team.
Employee anonymous shift comments are also available for the manager to view by emotion category, immediately after being submitted. This instant feedback allows managers to respond promptly should it be needed, before it becomes a bigger issue.
What's most important, is what you do with the insights
Acting on the insights is just as important as capturing them. You can begin to understand what motivates, or demotivates, your staff and create action plans to improve workplace sentiment and engagement. And it doesn't have to be hard, find a team engagement framework and adjust to your own situation.
Businesses that make employees feel like an integral and valued part of the business can thrive even in uncertain times — no matter their size.
Need to get a pulse on team sentiment?
Shift engagement is available as part of the Deputy Premium plan.
