HR 101

Tips for Engaging Hourly Employees

Pat Brothwell

A manager works to engage one of his hourly employees.

Engagement is Imperative

The most successful organizations have high rates of engaged employees. Engaged employees feel a connection to their job and coworkers. They’re team-oriented, solution-oriented, and optimistic about their future at the organization where they work. Engagement doesn’t mean these workers will work nights and weekends and are married to the job, either. They’re passionate about what they do but typically not stressed and have a healthy work-life balance.

The most successful organizations have high rates of engagement because highly engaged workplaces have:

Happier employees: Engaged organizations ensure that employees feel valued and welcome, which contributes to a happier, less stressed workforce—$500 billion is lost yearly from workplace stress.
Better retention: Gallup found that 74% of disengaged employees actively search for new jobs.
Lower absenteeism rates: studies show engaged workplaces saw 41% less absenteeism.
Better customer service: engaged employees care deeply about their jobs and, thus, the customer experience.
Higher productivity: Engaged employees are 17% more productive than their disengaged peers.
Greater profits: Highly engaged organizations are 21% more profitable than disengaged competitors.

Engagement can be tricky, though—Gallup found that just 30% of US employees are engaged (though top-performing companies boost double that engagement).

Hourly Employees Get Overlooked

A cursory Google search will net you many resources for increasing employee engagement. Still, a mistake most of this content makes, and a mistake many employers make, is focusing on engaging their salaried employees, not hourly staff.

What’s the reason for that? We hypothesize that part of the reason is that engaging hourly workers is more difficult than salaried ones. The nature of hourly employment often makes it more challenging to create strong relationships—there are rotating shifts, often multiple locations, and the turnover rate for hourly employees is higher than for salaried employees.

However, engaging hourly employees reap the same benefits as engaging their salaried counterparts—better retention, higher productivity, and higher profits. Employers are doing themselves a disservice considering that hourly employees represent 60% of the US workforce.

While many ways to increase employee engagement are universal, salary employees have some unique needs and can approach work differently than their hourly counterparts. Below, we’ll provide some tips specifically designed to engage an hourly workforce.

Deskless workers—employees who don’t have a desk or office to anchor their workspace—are another subset of employees with specific wants and needs that employers and employer-centric content often overlook. 44% of deskless workers feel disconnected from their employers, leading to disengagement.

Start With Recruiting

The recruiting process—starting with the application—is your first chance to engage your potential new employees and get them invested in your organization. Things you can do during the recruitment process to ensure maximum engagement include:

Provide a seamless candidate experience: Be proactive in your communication, be considerate of candidates' time, ensure your hiring process is convenient, and let candidates know their status at all times. Recruiting software like an applicant tracking system can help automate, streamline, and strengthen your recruiting.
Ask strength-based questions: Strength-based questions give candidates a forum to discuss their strengths and experiences and sell themselves. Strength-based questions lean into what candidates have the capacity for, not what’s holding them back. Candidates will leave a strength-based interview feeling empowered, not self-conscious.
Highlight the benefits of the role Do you have internal mobility? Professional development opportunities? Great perks? Why should the candidate want to work for you and do a good job? Even if your hourly role is temporary (like a summer gig), explain how this role could benefit the candidate during the interview process.
Be authentic: Today’s job seekers are savvy. Employees will walk away if you talk about how everyone at your organization is “like a family,” but that doesn’t prove true. It serves employees to be as authentic and transparent as possible.

HiringThing is a recruiting platform as a service (PaaS) that helps organizations automate, streamline, and strengthen their recruiting with our private label applicant tracking system. Check out What a Private Label Applicant Tracking System Does for End Users to learn more benefits of this recruiting technology.

Embrace Flexible Scheduling

Flexibility is a highly sought-after workplace perk, but hourly workers are often excluded since many employ the “just-in-time” scheduling model. “Just-in-time” scheduling limits the availability of employees with dependents, school, second jobs, or other personal considerations.

However, you can still embrace flexibility with your hourly roles. It may mean more work for management, but isn’t higher engagement and retention worth it? You can empower your hourly workers with a more flexible schedule by:

Paying those with less desirable schedules more.
Providing more fixed shifts and worker-controlled scheduling options—Walmart did this in 2018 and found it reduced absenteeism across the workforce.
Giving employees schedule options. Employers who give employees a say in their scheduling see greater employee retention.

Provide Up-to-Date Technical Support

Deskless or hourly workers often feel like they aren’t supported with technology solutions their salaried or desk-working peers are. $300 billion is spent on business software each year, and traditionally very little of that goes to support deskless workers.

Additionally, hourly employees report spending up to 19% of their time looking for information. Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report shows that only 3 in 10 hourly employees strongly agree that they have the materials and equipment they need to do their work right. This means that filing, knowledge bases, and digitization meant to make workers’ lives easier is either not up to par or nonexistent.

Just because someone is hourly or not at a desk doesn’t mean organizations should skimp on the tech solutions they can use. Ensure parity between your salaried and hourly employees so that everyone has the tools to best do their jobs.

Recognize Your Employees

84% of HR leaders report that employee recognition programs improve employee engagement.

Many hourly workers are unsatisfied with their job because they don't feel supported and recognized in their workplaces. According to the Randstad Employee Brand Research (REBR) 27% of employees say that a lack of recognition is what drives them away from an employer.

Recognition is twofold. It means recognizing employees' thoughts, feelings, and suggestions when it comes to their employee experience, the way the organization runs, and how they do their jobs. You can do this through employee surveys, more unofficial meetings with management, or simply taking the time to listen when an employee has something to say about their role.

Recognition also gives someone credit for a job well done, often accomplished through some sort of employee recognition strategy. 89% of HR leaders say recognition programs improve the employee experience and 84% of HR leaders report their employee recognition program strengthens employee engagement.

Help With Career Planning

Today’s employees overwhelmingly want career development in their next role. 86% of millennials (the generation making up the bulk of our current workforce) say that offering career training and development would keep them from leaving their current position. A lack of career development is also the top reason today’s employees leave positions.

86% of millennials say that offering career training and development would keep them from leaving their current position.

Companies are coming around to spending more on learning and development than ever, but again, this is a case where they often neglect to do for hourly staff members. Writer Susan Milligan made a great point in an SHRM article titled Engagement is Important for Hourly Workers True (which we implore you to check out) where she writes, “Make hourly employees feel they have a future at the company. Good hourly workers may end up being great long-term, salaried employees, so find out who has in-house career aspirations and help them achieve that.”

You can help hourly employees with career development with mentoring programs, career tracks, or helping them seek educational opportunities outside the company (college, boot camps, etc.).

Involve Them in Decision Making

It’s important for all employees to feel part of the company, and as we’ve established, hourly employees often feel disconnected. Engaging hourly employees in the company's direction by sharing ideas, providing feedback, attending creative or decision-making meetings, or having a say in workflows and processes are vital for making them feel like part of your team. Ensure your hourly employees receive communications informing them of these decision-making initiatives, and ensure that any decision-making initiatives have several time slots so that all hourly employees can participate.

Prioritize Company Culture

Company culture is crucial since it shows your employees that their values and priorities align with your organization's values. However, research finds that hourly workers rate their perception of company culture lower than salaried employees. Hourly employees still want to feel connected and satisfied in their roles and will be more engaged if they feel like they’re part of something bigger than just a paycheck.

Remember, while company culture can be employee events, happy hours, or contests, the best company cultures are rooted in something more profound. Questions you can ask about your organization to jumpstart your company culture include:

Can you define your company culture?
Are you known for treating your employees well and having a good work-life balance?
Do you trust your employees?
Do you regularly promote from within?
Do all your employees feel a sense of autonomy?
What are workplace relationships like?
Do employees seem friendly with one another and genuinely glad to be there? Do you provide annual performance reviews and offer viable incentives to hourly and salaried employees?
Do your employees understand the values that drive your business?

These factors play into a company’s culture and an employee’s workplace experience, and they will go a long way in attracting long-term talent.

Additional Resources for Hourly Employers

We hope you found this post helpful. Below are some additional resources we’ve created geared towards organizations with hourly employees.

About HiringThing

HiringThing is a modern recruiting platform as a service that creates seamless hiring experiences. Their private label applicant tracking system and open API enables technology and service providers to add hiring capabilities to their solution. Approachable and adaptable, their platform empowers anyone, anywhere, to hire their dream team.