An engaged workforce cannot simply be hired. It needs good people management strategy and practices.

Engaging and Retaining Employees in the Nuclear & Construction Sectors

Most people start a new job with high levels of motivation and enthusiasm, which is often reduced, over time, by bad practices and poor culture. Engagement can be described as how people interact with their work role and express this through their satisfaction, dedication, enthusiasm and pride for their job which can impact their performance, well-being, collaboration, commitment and ultimately retention.

Engaging and retaining workers goes beyond rates of pay. While fair compensation and benefits are important companies need to focus on issues such as ensuring alignment within executive and work teams on the organisation or project purpose and goals, and on the roles, responsibilities and priorities of each team and employee. Engagement & retention starts by hiring the right people that fit with your culture and implementing an effective on-boarding process. One area to focus on is supporting managers to implement good people management practices that build trust and respect, clarify expectations on performance standards, provide effective feedback and develop an understanding of each individuals needs and motivators. Mechanisms need to be in place to ensure good communication and employee voice. Consideration also needs to be given to policies, processes, tools and the physical work environment so that they are perceived as appropriate, safe and productive.

Managers need to be equipped with the skills and behaviours to build, engage and retain their teams

Why Engagement & Retention is important in the Construction Sector

Construction companies have a particular need to focus on engaging and retaining their employees due to the project nature of the industry requiring constant forming and disbanding of teams, the impact of having a high proportion of contract staff and in the UK a predicted skills shortage. Construction employee turnover is high, voluntary and involuntary can reach 18 –20% per year in the UK, compared to 10% across all sectors.

If engagement can be defined and measured, what drives it? What persuades the employee to 'go that extra mile' - and what does the organisation need to give in return?

A typical approach to improving engagement and retention could include

1.   Make employee engagement & retention efforts organisation and employee-specific

• Define the industry context your organisation works within, the specific business needs and from this which practices are fundamental to business success.
• Review organisational factors such as culture and leadership style that will impact on the approach taken.
• Determine if engagement levels are already high or relatively low by measuring engagement & retention.
• Understand the barriers to engagement & retention by auditing current practices and getting feedback from employees
• Identify ways to group teams or employees who would benefit from different approaches
• Agree whether to take a ‘one size fits all’ approach or targeted initiative

2.   Develop an action plan

• Based on this organisational clarity the right recipe of engagement initiatives can be developed aided by A2O People’s engagement checklist.
• Determine what is in your sphere of influence or control, what can be done at the organisational level, what managers can do and what should be undertaken by the individual.
• Identify the management behaviours needed to support the initiatives and provide people management training to team leaders.
• Hold facilitated workshops to help people establish rules around practices and acceptable behaviours, removing the barriers to teamwork.   
• Agree approaches to measure progress and sustain the improvements.

For SME’s fast-track approaches can be adopted to minimise disruption and to keep costs within realistic budgets.

If you need some help with engaging and retaining your people, then get in touch to arrange a consultation by emailing our with our team of consultants or calling us on 01278 732073.