Thanks to companies like Google and Facebook, the attractiveness of working for global companies includes unprecedented perks like free food, unlimited holiday and ping pong tables on every floor of the office. While this doesn’t translate into employee engagement, it does outline the employee experience or workplace culture. And the desire to create these environments is ever-increasing. 

Employee engagement for everyone
For small companies, with smaller budgets, employee experience is something that tends to get swept aside as a “larger company” notion. But employee engagement – which is an element of employee experience or workplace culture – can be an integral part of your small business.

Employee engagement is basically the point at which the needs and interests of your employees aligns with your company’s goals and strategy. It’s about understanding what your team wants and how that fits with your company vision.

Don’t struggle to compete
Quite a few large companies are now struggling to compete with these perks – and what about those small businesses that are trying to recruit and retain from the same talent pool?

Well, luckily for small businesses, employee engagement is not a one-size-fits-all answer. If your company can’t afford to offer free meals and unlimited holiday (and let’s face it, almost every company can’t!), you can offer some equivalent.

“It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is. Make engagement about the employee,” says Andy Philpott at Edenred. “Don’t think about what looks best – think about what your employees’ needs and wants. This means, routinely talking to your team. If it’s not viable for you to offer free meals every day, think about offering lunch on Fridays or organising a monthly meal out. People appreciate owning the ideas too.”

Big Ideas for Small Budgets

• Wellbeing perks like walking meetings and weekly office fruit deliveries
• Quarterly nights out
• Monthly team breakfasts
• Cycle2Work scheme
• Personal development budget for courses and events
• Flexible working
• Team charity challenges

Find the perfect fit
The employee-shaped glass slipper. It’s not always pretty, it’s not one-size fits all. This Cinderella analogy means one thing: Find the shoe that fits. Finding the right fit also means making sure your tools don’t cause extra hassle. The trick is to keep admin to a minimum so no one in the team feels a massive burden.

Go with Employee Engagement that supports:

• Recruitment
• Retention
• Scaling up growth
• Productivity

With the right tools, the right approach and most importantly, the right strategy for your business, you will be on your way to finding the perfect fit with how you engage with your employees.