A recent study on the American workplace highlighted the single greatest thing you can do to increase employee engagement: hire the right managers. In fact, the study said that if you hire a manager who is disengaged, the work group they manage is three times more likely to be disengaged.
So even if you hire the right, highly-engaged managers, they still need to know, and do, the most effective things to bring their work group to higher, and hopefully best-in-class, levels of engagement. And even if they know these engagement management 'to-dos', they often forget to implement them, or execute them consistently. 
So why not give them a checklist? Created based on a key driver analysis of millions of employee engagement survey responses, the Management Employee Engagement Checklist has been used by hundreds of organisations worldwide, with great success. The following suggestions are in order of importance.
Checklist to enable employee engagement
Have you:
- Put a reminder in your calendar to carve out one hour each week to recognise employees who do great work or accomplish great outcomes?
- Had a career development conversation with each of your direct reports during the last quarter?
- During this conversation, did you ask them where they wanted to be in six months or a year and offer them help to achieve that career objective?
- Also during this conversation, did you ask them what things get them passionate and excited about doing their job? Conversely, did you ask them what things disengage them while at work?
- Did you ask them what their passions and hobbies are outside of work, showing a genuine interest while listening to their response? On a related note, the next time they do great work, give them a gift related to that passion or hobby (such as a paperback book).
- Give your direct reports access to a free resource which will empower them to privately see how engaged they are, as well as get suggestions on what they can do to become more engaged.
- Given them clear instructions and your expectations on what outcomes they should accomplish in their job?
- Encouraged them to review a list of reflective questions to ensure they are in a job / role about which they can get excited and passionate?
- Found ways to insert more ‘fun’ into your department and workplace culture?
This checklist will prove useful to ensure that your managers are fully leveraging the key drivers of employee engagement. It is a best practice that managers should review this checklist every month. Let it work for you and your team!