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5 Ways to Re-Engage Dissatisfied Employees Leading a team of unhappy, disgruntled and generally tricky employees is the real challenge. Here are some tips for re-engaging them.

By Steve Taplin Edited by Chelsea Brown

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

What is your biggest fear as a business owner? Losing your clients? Losing to your competitors? A terrible review from a customer? Sure, all these are valid cases both in startups and established businesses. But there is something that you might want to pay a little more attention to — your employees. Leading a team of unhappy, disgruntled and generally tricky employees is the real challenge. Well, no matter how small, the impacts of a dissatisfied team go beyond high employee turnover rates. Such workers will create a tense, hectic and hostile work environment, negatively impacting the entire team's productivity.

Today, most businesses leverage technology to engage their teams, whether in or out of the workplace. This has proven a brilliant way of enhancing communication between departments and creating a good work environment. Here are a few ways business and technology leaders can re-engage their dissatisfied teams, improve productivity and record better retention:

Related: 7 Signs Your Employees Are Unhappy and What to Do About It

1. Invest in performance assessment management tools

Your employees are your most valuable assets. After all, you have invested a lot of time and resources to ensure that you only recruit the best and unique talents. That said, it is only natural that you want to go the extra mile to ensure that your team offers nothing but their best effort for the growth and success of your business. But unfortunately, skills and experience are not enough to measure and accurately evaluate their performance. That is why you need to invest in an employee performance management tool to equip you with valuable employee engagement strategies and help you incorporate a good workplace culture.

With reliable self-service performance management tools, your employees can easily access company data and perform various tasks assigned by the human resource team. Therefore, the team can quickly provide or engage their personal employee information, respond to multiple requests and evaluations and apply for job posts in various departments. Performance management tools bring about a seamless flow of communication, allowing employees and the management team to work more efficiently and effectively.

2. On-the-job training and education

On-the-job training and education are integral activities for businesses that want to thrive and remain competitive. With that in mind, it is not surprising that both small and large business enterprises across the nation are partnering with nearshore software companies. One of the significant benefits of working with such teams is their ability to strengthen your entire group and help the business reach its objectives. For instance, you can take advantage of the blended learning tools, making it easy for your employees to enjoy flexible learning schedules. Generally, blended learning is all about using virtual classrooms, e-learning tools, and sometimes, in-person sessions. In addition, business owners and managers can incorporate many learning methods to stimulate the employee's interest. Consequently, the various learning tools can increase engagement, enthusiasm and work performance.

Related: How Business Leaders Can Keep Employees Engaged

3. Effective department collaborations

Collaboration is one of the most integral business communication methods. Effective engagements between the various departments in your business can enhance the overall interactions and facilitate a seamless flow of events. Collaborative departments quickly agree on goals, budgets and project timelines, among other issues. It is even better for companies with intranet and reliable in-house networking services that allow employees across different departments to stay connected. With intranet services, employees in the same or different departments can easily share files and work together simultaneously.

4. Encourage social interactions within the workplace

Humans are social beings who crave connection and contact with other people. This makes good social interactions crucial to your team members' well-being. In today's modern business world, using technology to enhance social interactions is one of the easiest ways to strengthen your relationship with employees. It is also an efficient way of creating and promoting brand awareness. They can also help you convert your prospects into clients by posting thoughts and ideas about the business, especially during upcoming promotions and other projects. Besides, healthy social connections and interactions in the workplace can make people physically and emotionally healthier. This translates to improved performance, a thriving workforce and a successful business.

Your employees can do a lot to reinforce and confirm what your marketing team says about the business on social media or business websites. Additionally, your team can help you grow your online presence and keep your business even more competitive.

5. Incorporate technology-based work groups

Employee work groups can help teams in different departments sync, share updates/information and connect more intimately. This makes it easy for them to share other ideas about the business goals, how to attain them and how to handle various projects and issues, such as budgeting. Teams can also share about the multiple struggles in the workplace and how to go about them, structure different activity schedules and streamline communication within the company. Fortunately, numerous SPSS platforms offering business cloud services have gained even more traction than intranet services. Business cloud services help you create a work group, a more convenient way of storing and sharing information across various departments in the workplace. The software makes it easy for the teams to customize numerous tasks, such as creating contact list databases and defining sales goals. This allows the employees to collaborate more efficiently and receive feedback on the progress of their work.

Related: Employees Are Still Dissatisfied -- Here's What You Can Do About It

There is so much you can do to re-engage a dissatisfied team of employees, from helping them understand their purpose, asking for feedback, better pay and treating them with respect. However, if you want your business to thrive in the competitive modern world, you might want to go the extra step. The use of technology in the workplace continues to evolve with time. Partnering with nearshore software companies will help you tap into these sources and re-engage your dissatisfied employees. This will improve the flow of ideas and information, improve innovation and enhance your company's performance.

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Steve Taplin

CEO of Sonatafy Technology

Steve Taplin is the CEO of Sonatafy Technology (www.sonatafy.com), a premier nearshore software-development-services firm that provides its clients with expertise in cloud solutions, web and mobile applications, ecommerce, big data, DevOps practices, QA, IoT and machine learning.

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