Author: Kristina Proffitt

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Employee Retention

6 steps towards a more effective succession planning process

“I’m leaving.” Within a week, he’d gone. There had been no succession planning process. No one had expected him to go.

Along with him went his organizational knowledge, industry experience, and even account logins.

Everyone was left scrambling. He’d been pivotal to just about everything, from software development to purchasing to company culture. There was an immediate shift.

While this is something that happened in a previous role of mine, it’s not unique. People leave roles all the time for various reasons and there are no guarantees you’ll see it coming.

There’s a very simple solution to it, though: establish a succession planning process.

An effective succession planning process ensures that, if someone does leave, there are people there to pick up where that person left off. Organizational knowledge doesn’t leave with them—nor do company logins.

(Seriously; it’s 2025. Use a password manager. There are enough of them.)

So let’s delve into how to implement a succession planning process, why it matters, and how to optimize it.

Why does having a succession planning process matter?

In addition to ensuring there’s no mad panic when someone leaves, it’s also a reason for people to stay.

Over half of employees would be “significantly more engaged” if their employer had a succession plan, and 94% of employers feel having one positively impacts employee engagement.

A succession planning process is vital for younger employees in particular, with over 90% of employees between 18 and 34 saying that working somewhere with a succession plan would improve their engagement levels.

And I can see why. It stops the job from feeling so monotonous and dead-ended. Especially in a world where so many of us now live to work instead of work to live. We lack third spaces and hobbies to interest and motivate us, and work rarely pays enough for us to make ends meet. To fill the void, we want more from our work.

At my first role, there was no succession planning process. Likely because there was nowhere to actually go.

Some people had been in roles for a decade or more and didn’t want to move. For some people, that’s fine.

But if you want to motivate employees, particularly younger ones, you want to give them something to aim for.

Succession planning process questions

Here are some questions to answer for your succession planning process:

What are your critical roles?

These are the roles where, if there’s no one in them, things fall apart. Much like the one I referenced in the introduction.

What your mission-critical roles are will depend on your business.

They might include:

  • IT helpdesk/maintenance, so there’s always someone if technology breaks
  • Finance, so you can pay employees and taxes on time
  • HR, to deal with employee disputes
  • Marketing, so your leads don’t grind to a halt
  • Sales, so there’s someone around to nurture your leads and turn them into customers

What are your eligibility requirements?

What requirements will people need to be considered as part of your succession planning process? Are you focusing on skills or mindset? A combination of the two?

Speak to the people already in your key roles, those who’ve been promoted from them, and those who work alongside them. This will give you a clear picture of what someone needs to be a success and keep everything running smoothly.

Then, write a job description based on these characteristics. It will give employees something to aim for and you something to compare their skills against.

How will you fill your talent pipeline?

Who will you nominate as successors? How will you find them? Will you ask people to put themselves forward, or get managers to nominate people? A combination of the two? How will you communicate that there’s an opening coming up?

A succession planning process only works if there’s talent in your pipeline to promote. Even if that talent is passive.

When and how will you train people?

Training is a key part of your succession planning process. Without it, whoever gets promoted may not be prepared to take on the role and things are likely to fall apart.

There are plenty of ways to train people, from online courses to lunch and learns to all-day workshops and more. Offering a variety of training options means you can train a wider range of candidates in a wider range of skills.

Will you offer mentoring?

Mentoring is a great tool for knowledge sharing, particularly when it comes to your succession planning process and nurturing your future leaders.

A formal mentoring scheme ensures that knowledge is shared more easily and openly. Plus, shy employees who may not want to ask for help or for someone to mentor them can still get to grow.

Mentoring can be a useful way to teach employees the technical and soft skills they need, as well as improve their confidence and develop a growth mindset.

What soft skills will they need?

Over half of managers never receive any formal training, but becoming a manager requires a whole new set of skills, including:

  • Conflict resolution
  • Corporate politics
  • Employee management 
  • Juggling their workload with supporting employees

Mentoring is an effective way to teach soft skills such as these.

ERGs are another option.

ERGs are often untapped training resources where employees can organize learning sessions themselves, share resources, and ask for advice.

Workrowd can help you get more from your employee groups. Using Workrowd, your employees can find everything they need to know in one place, including the latest employee events, programs, and networking opportunities. It’s your one-stop-shop for employee initiatives. Get in touch today to find out more.

Conclusion

Having a succession planning process ensures that when someone leaves, your business keeps running. It means you’re not reliant on a handful of core people to keep things going and your employees are motivated because they know they won’t be doing the same thing day in, day out, forever.

An effective succession planning process accounts for employees’ strengths as well as offering training opportunities so that when you do promote them, they’re adequately prepared for what’s next.

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Employee Engagement

6 employee engagement activities to improve team dynamics

When employees are engaged, they perform at a higher level. They want to be at work, meaning they go above and beyond and build strong team dynamics so your business becomes more profitable more quickly.

It also saves you money on hiring: 54% of employees will stay for longer if they feel a deep connection to their workplace.

Team dynamics is one of the key pillars of employee engagement. If your employees can’t work well together, it creates conflicts, unnecessary stress, and slows down processes.

So, what can you do if you want to improve team dynamics? Here are a few suggestions:

Introduce new team members to everyone

I’m not going to lie, the first time someone did this to me I felt like a dog at a show. I had meeting after meeting after meeting with people outside of my team.

But it actually worked out really well.

You see, those meetings broke the ice. We got to know each other.

And so, when I needed something from them, or them from me, a rapport was already established, and we were more likely to want to help the other person because we knew and liked them.

Starting a new job can feel intimidating, but introducing a new team member to people they’re likely to need to work with can help them settle in and feel more like a valued part of not just the team, but the company.

As a result, they’ll get more done faster and be more engaged in their roles. And you’ll see a marked improvement in team dynamics.

Train your managers

While this isn’t a direct employee engagement activity, it will make a huge difference to your team dynamics.

Fewer than half of managers receive any training before they get promoted. 30% of employees feel their managers don’t have any team-building skills. Clearly showing that employees can tell when managers don’t receive any training.

Your managers set your team culture. Without them driving it in an effective way, the whole castle crumbles.

A few hours of basic management training can go a long way toward building a more engaged, efficient, effective team.

And, while it’s an upfront investment, it will save you money in the long run. By investing in training you won’t lose as much to miscommunications and mismanagement.

Start meetings with a human conversation

Meetings can often feel boring, stuffy, and unnecessary. One way you can avoid this is to start them by treating attendees like humans first, instead of workers first.

Ask people how they are, how their weekends were, etc. This humanizes everyone in the meeting to the other attendees. It also helps you establish a rapport and find common ground, both of which are key to team dynamics.

If it’s a larger meeting and this isn’t possible, consider asking a simple question that requires a shorter answer, such as their favorite animal or movie. They can then expand on these answers in private conversations or larger ones in their employee interest groups.

Only have meetings when you need them

You want happy employees? Have fewer meetings.

How often have you sat in a meeting thinking that it could’ve been an email instead? When organizing a meeting, consider which will get you to the solution faster.

Also think about what is better suited to the person you’re talking with. Just because you prefer a meeting, that doesn’t mean they do. Some people have their best ideas when they’ve had time to percolate and can respond in writing.

Don’t leave out your remote employees

Many companies now have a combination of remote, hybrid, and office-based employees. That’s great. It opens up the talent pool to employees from farther afield and makes you a more inclusive employer. As a result, you get all the benefits that diversity brings such as greater innovation and problem solving.

However, to get the most from every one of your employees, you need to support them all equally.

Unfortunately, 41% of remote employees find it hard to integrate with their company’s culture. And just 33% of remote companies take even basic measures to create a sense of community.

So, how can you include your remote employees and boost team dynamics organization-wide?

If you’re hosting a meeting that not everyone can attend in person, don’t overlook the people joining remotely. Get someone to act as call coordinator, keeping everyone looped in and acting as tech support to help everything go smoothly.

Having one person manage the call ensures the meeting host doesn’t have to worry about it, but remote participants still have a point of contact throughout the meeting.

Simple things like including everyone in meetings shows people they’re valued members of the team and that you want their thoughts on important topics.

Set up employee groups

Employee groups are one of the best ways to connect employees from different teams within your organization. 

These communities enable people to find common ground even if they’re based in a different country or are part of departments that don’t usually interact. 

They also connect your remote and in-person employees so that wherever someone works from, they still feel included in your business.

Want to get the most from your employee groups? Workrowd could be just what you need. We can help you organize your employee groups, programs, and events, boost engagement, and track your impact in real-time.

Conclusion 

Team dynamics play a pivotal role in employee engagement. They’re responsible for your employees’ happiness, which in turn is responsible for employees’ mental health and productivity levels.

Failing to consider how team dynamics impacts these things means your business will suffer long-term from high employee turnover and the roadblocks created when people don’t know how to collaborate. As a result, you’ll lose revenue.

Want to prevent that from happening? Workrowd can help you get more from your employee initiatives. Whether it’s ERGs, events, knowledge sharing, or something else, we can help. Get in touch to book your free demo.

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Employee Experience

How a knowledge transfer plan boosts your employee experience

A knowledge transfer plan ensures that when someone leaves your organization, their key knowledge doesn’t go with them. It reduces the stress remaining employees feel and ensures that when someone is promoted they can hit the ground running.

It’s so effective that organizations with a strong knowledge transfer program achieve a 15-30% boost to productivity.

On the other hand, companies with poor knowledge transfer processes lose an average of $420,000 per year. Ouch.

When your organization has a solid knowledge management process, it boosts employee engagement by 20%. Which makes sense; employees are desperate for opportunities to learn and grow. Knowledge transfer is just one of the ways you can support that.

So, let’s take a deeper dive into how a knowledge transfer plan elevates your employee experience. Plus, what steps you can take to boost yours:

A knowledge transfer plan keeps everything running when someone leaves

We’ve all worked for an organization where one person holds the keys to a particular area.

Then that person leaves, and the rest of the organization is left scrambling to clean up the mess and work out what to do. This slows everyone down, creates unnecessary stress, and costs money.

Unfortunately, when one person holds all the knowledge, this is an inevitability. Especially if that person leaves suddenly or goes on a sabbatical or long-term sick leave. And by then, it’s too late to ask the person with all the answers.

A knowledge transfer plan prevents this. It ensures that more than one person holds the keys and knows what to do when things go wrong, or how to access certain things.

They help with employee attraction and retention

83% of employees consider learning and development opportunities a key factor when choosing an employer.

When you provide these valuable opportunities, your people are more likely to stick around because you’re offering them something to help them upskill and reskill in a challenging market, where so many jobs are being erased or undervalued by AI.

Over two thirds of employees will leave a role without adequate learning and development opportunities, according to Totaljobs. Companies that don’t support employees to grow risk losing their high performers as they choose not to stagnate.

With a knowledge transfer plan in place, you can ensure that employees can focus on learning new skills and approaches, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

They streamline the career ladder

Having a knowledge transfer plan is also vital to supporting employees as they climb the career ladder.

It ensures that when they start their new role, they have the skills to hit the ground running instead of fumbling around trying to figure things out once they’ve received the promotion.

For example, over half of new managers don’t get any training before a promotion. This means they have no idea how to handle people management, team dynamics, conflict resolution, etc. Despite these being vital skills for any manager to be successful and support their employees.

When managers are offered this training, they’re better able to give their employees the support they need and can juggle their own priorities more easily. As a result, there’s no loss of productivity or increase in stress; they already have everything they need to succeed in their new role.

What to include in your knowledge transfer plan

Now that we know why having a knowledge transfer plan is important, let’s explore what to include in yours.

Employee groups

Employee groups are one of the simplest ways to encourage knowledge transfer between employees. Anyone can join them, manage them, or set them up.

They can work for just about any topic, whether it’s work-related or not.

They also support employee engagement by getting team members to talk to people outside of their immediate department. This fosters a sense of belonging and creates a more connected workforce that collaborates better together.

Documentation 

Writing down everything employees need to know about a company, team, or industry is one of the best ways to support knowledge transfer. It ensures that people can go back to it time and time again, so it’s always there even if the original writer left years ago.

Don’t just assume that someone knows something or will pick it up by osmosis. It’s often not that simple, especially if someone has been at the company a long time, there’s a culture that’s against asking questions, or they’re afraid to ask.

Writing everything down in a knowledge transfer plan removes these hurdles. It makes all the information someone might need accessible to everyone regardless of when or why they want it.

Mentoring

One of the best ways to transfer knowledge between employees is mentoring. It enables more senior employees to kick-start the careers of younger employees by helping them avoid the pitfalls they experienced.

Factoring this more informal information into your knowledge transfer plan ensures team members get the full picture.

Coaching

Coaching can help employees become better problem solvers, adapt to the new working world, and be better team players. 

All of these things can help with knowledge transfer, from the people sharing their knowledge becoming better at doing so, to the people receiving knowledge becoming better listeners. 

Coaches themselves will also have knowledge they can share to boost employees’ effectiveness in a role.

Resources like books and courses

Books and podcasts are still effective ways for employees to learn new things and update their knowledge. They’re an immersive way to digest new information, requiring concentration—particularly when reading—which means employees are more likely to retain the new knowledge.

To make the reading more effective, they could take notes from the book of key points and translate those key points into their own words. This helps with understanding and memory recall.

Online courses are a useful way to learn, particularly in niche industries or if an employee isn’t based in a big city. They reduce the cost of travel while ensuring employees don’t miss out on knowledge that could support their career growth.

Incorporating these resources into your knowledge transfer plan can help cater to different learning styles as well.

In-person events

For employees trying to grow their knowledge, there are few better opportunities than in-person events.

They’re great networking opportunities and at the right event, speakers can help spark new ideas and teach attendees more about the organization or your specific industry.

Conclusion 

A knowledge transfer plan ensures that when an employee leaves, their important company and industry knowledge doesn’t go with them. These are just a few of the ways you can support knowledge transfer within your business.

If you’d like to create a culture of knowledge sharing, why not establish a hub for both formal and informal information? With important learnings, employee groups and events, and more all in the same place, your knowledge transfer plan will basically make itself.

Workrowd can be that hub. Our intuitive interface ensures employees can quickly find what they need, no matter where or when they work. Get in touch today to find out more.

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Employee Engagement

Using employee interest groups to build high-performing teams

Previously, we looked at the ways employee interest groups can affect team performance. Now, we’re going to explore how you can use employee interest groups to build high-performing teams, starting from the basics right through to the real differentiators.

Encourage employees to join

Obviously the first step is to get people involved. Just having employee interest groups isn’t enough to build high-performing teams. You won’t see results if people don’t join or don’t get benefits from them.

If you’re serious about employee groups, you need to embed them into every part of your company.

Let someone know about them when they join; send email reminders; run recruitment drives; host events; do as much as you can to spread the word about your groups. 

The larger an organization gets, the more difficult it will be to spread the word, so the more you tell employees about them, the better.

Get leaders active in them too

Leaders set an example. If they don’t seem interested in your groups, employees probably won’t see the point in them, either.

When leaders are active in employee interest groups, it humanizes them to their team members. They feel less like the Wizard behind his curtain and more like someone on the journey alongside them.

This then makes it easier for employees to have tougher conversations, hold leadership accountable, and feel heard when they have an opinion to share. When your people have trust in their leaders, it makes it much easier to build high-performing teams.

Set up a range of interest groups

No one specific type of group will appeal to everyone. Setting up a range of groups, from pop culture interests to demographics, ensures there’s something for everyone.

Get a range of different people to run them as well, as this will ensure employees across the organization feel welcome to join. When people can see themselves in leadership positions, even informal ones through employee interest groups, it helps motivate them and sets you up to build high-performing teams.

Share the benefits

If your team members come from organizations that don’t use interest groups, or you’re only just setting them up, they may not know how these communities can benefit them.

You therefore need to educate your team on how joining could help them personally and professionally.

Make sure they’re aware of how employee interest groups can help with:

  • Knowledge sharing
  • Networking
  • Making friends
  • Discussing their favorite hobbies and interests
  • Meeting like-minded people
  • Getting support
  • Improving their confidence

While you may feel like you’re belaboring the point, it’s unlikely that every employee within your organization will read the email when you announce your groups. They might be on vacation, out sick, or just too busy to read it.

So regularly sharing that these groups exist is important because the more you mention it, the more likely people are to want to be a part of one (or more). 

And it shows them that the groups won’t become a forgotten initiative in six months’ time. Capitalizing on these benefits will help improve individual employees’ performance, and help you build high-performing teams.

Encourage employees to create them

Your groups are only as good as the people leading them. You need engaged employees who are interested in the group’s topic to host. That way, they’ll be motivated to recruit new people, start conversations, and organize events.

It’s also encouraging for employees to see other employees in a different style of leadership. The skills and connections employees build through these groups can go a long way towards helping you build high-performing teams.

Centralize your learning

Having one location where employees can find all your learning and development opportunities means that anyone interested is less likely to miss out. If they want to know what’s coming up, they can simply check out the relevant interest group.

Or, if they have a suggestion, they can place it in the group to gauge if anyone else is interested. This is particularly useful if someone wants to bring in an outside speaker and see if it’s worth it.

Workrowd can help you keep all your employee initiatives in one place, from your L&D opportunities to your employee interest groups. Want to find out more? Get in touch to book your free demo.

Develop a mentoring group

Too often, businesses assume that mentoring will happen organically. But this is rarely the case.

Your senior leaders are busy. They may not have even thought about mentoring someone.

Your younger or newer employees, meanwhile, may be too shy to speak up. If anyone is confident enough to do so, this may mean that your shier, more capable employees get left behind simply because of a lack of confidence.

So then they either won’t reach their potential or they’ll leave because they feel unsupported.

Having a place where mentors and mentees can come together is therefore crucial to supporting your internal learning and development goals. In turn, it’s essential to building high-performing teams

Your employee interest groups are vital places for employees to meet people outside of their everyday colleagues.

Having a place where highly motivated employees can come together and network ensures that whether they’re remote, in the office, over the other side of the world, or new to your company, they can meet people who can encourage and motivate them.

Conclusion 

Ultimately, to get the most from your employee interest groups, you need to put the work in. You need to educate employees on their benefits, encourage them to join and organize groups, and continue to promote them, not mention them once then forget about them. Do this and they can boost your employer brand, support employee learning and development, create a more loyal workforce, and improve your bottom line.

Employee interest groups are one of the most powerful, underestimated tools for building and supporting high-performing teams. They’re pivotal to improving teamwork across your organization and making newer employees feel like a part of the team sooner.

If you’d like help to better organize, or even create, your employee interest groups, try Workrowd. Contact us today to find out more.

Building a disability employee resource group that drives impact
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ERG leadership tips to maximize your groups’ impact
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Employee Engagement

8 ways interest groups at work can improve team performance

Interest groups at work connect employees with something in common. That might be their backgrounds, interests, skill sets, goals, or something else.

Anyone can set up an interest group for just about anything—that’s part of what makes them such powerful tools!

In fact, they’re so powerful that social technologies like them can improve knowledge workers’ productivity during interactions by 20-25%.

However, one study found that only 20% of executives feel their team is high performing. Perhaps those teams need to invest in their employee interest groups?

Let’s dive in to the difference interest groups at work can make for your team, whether it’s high-performing or not…

Interest groups at work build human connection

86% of employees blame a lack of workplace collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. 

On the flip side, 37% of employees say that a great team was their primary reason for staying with an organization, as well as a motivator.

Think about it: if you like spending time with someone, you’re going to want to be around them. And you’re likely to work well with them, too.

Finding those team dynamics is incredibly challenging, but when you get it right…it’s magic.

Interest groups at work enable your employees to connect beyond their daily working lives. This humanizes them to their colleagues and vice versa: something that’s key to an engaged, supportive, happy company culture.

Employee interest groups improve communication skills

97% of people feel a lack of alignment in a team affects tasks or project outcomes. And why wouldn’t it? If not everyone is on the same page, it’s going to slow the whole project down because those one or two people who disagree will challenge every decision or drag their feet when doing things.

This might explain why 75% of employees would prefer to speak to colleagues like they would their friends. It also shows a need for more authentic communication.

Being able to be ourselves at work is powerful. It allows employees to not have to worry about masking or hiding, something which can be incredibly draining and affect our ability to perform in our roles. Interest groups at work help break down barriers and improve communication both within, and between teams.

They encourage teamwork

Teamwork and collaboration is “very important” to three in four employees.

When employees get along with their colleagues on a human level, they work better together. It’s always easier to work with someone we know and like, right? 

When we don’t know someone, it can create resistance. They’re more likely to think about their own needs and goals first, rather than considering what’s best for everyone involved.  

This is increasingly pronounced in companies that focus on individual performance-related metrics.

If your company encourages a culture of competition, why would employees do things that help others—even if not working together is detrimental?

Luckily, interest groups at work can help improve teamwork and collaboration by uniting employees around what they have in common.

Employee interest groups reduce workplace conflicts

Another benefit of interest groups at work is that when colleagues have common ground and communicate well, it reduces conflicts in the workplace.

There are fewer conflicts to resolve and when they do happen, they can be resolved in a faster, more diplomatic and respectful, way. So no one loses face or their temper.

Employee interest groups can also help employees understand different people’s communication styles, so they can meet them in the middle rather than assuming someone’s blunt tone is because they’ve done something wrong. This then reduces the risk of misunderstandings stemming from conflicting communication styles.

Interest groups at work reduce hurdles

When employees can collaborate better, it reduces the hurdles that happen when trying to get a project over the finish line.

It also reduces conflicts of interest because everyone is rowing in the same direction. Because of this, people can be more willing to compromise so long as they achieve the end goal. Building relationships through interest groups at work helps keep everyone aligned.

Employee interest groups can offer training opportunities 

Training is one of your most powerful employee attraction and retention tools. It’s also vital to high-performing teams. 74% of high-performing teams have access to these opportunities.

Interest groups at work are crucial tools for elevating your training and development opportunities. They’re a low-cost way to level up your employees by enabling them to share their knowledge and helpful resources.

You can also use them to organize your training and mentoring initiatives, keeping everything together in one, easy-to-find location for your employees.

Want help organizing your interest groups at work to offer more training opportunities? Check out Workrowd. It’s a one-stop employee engagement shop, with everything you need to organize your employee initiatives. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

They can help with goal setting

We often take goal setting for granted as a skill, but it isn’t always that simple. Employees who are new to the workplace, or new to your workplace, may find it hard to identify goals that align with your business. For instance, if they’ve never used OKRs before, how will they know what to do?

You can use interest groups at work to teach your employees about goal setting, why it’s important, and how they can set and achieve their own. This is important as 85% of high-performing teams have well-defined goals, so you need to ensure that they’ve got something to aim for. 

The right goals, designed in the right way, keep everyone moving in the same direction. Employees can then view every decision they make through the lens of whether it helps them, their team, and your business, get closer to those goals.

Interest groups at work can help you collect employee feedback

Employee feedback is a key tool to help you determine whether you’re on the right track or if you need to change course.

Employees may not always feel comfortable speaking up in meetings or in front of decision makers, but they may be willing to share with their colleagues in an interest group.

Collecting information about what’s happening with employees is vital. You need every person to be engaged and onboard to stay ahead of the competition. Otherwise, it can slow processes down and mean you risk falling behind.

Workrowd’s automated surveys can help you find out what your employees really think. Then, our real-time dashboards help you visualize your results in real-time. That way you can just focus on how to take action. Get in touch to find out more.

Conclusion 

Interest groups at work improve team communication and collaboration. As a result, every member in your team can play to their strengths and perform at their best, both individually and alongside their coworkers.

Keep an eye out for the next part, where we’ll discuss how you can use your interest groups at work to build high-performing teams.

Want help organizing your interest groups? Get in touch to book your demo.

Building a disability employee resource group that drives impact
Why you need to set up an employee resource group for women
ERG leadership tips to maximize your groups’ impact
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Employee Engagement

9 effective ways to motivate employees and boost engagement

Motivation is a fickle thing. It’s hard to find and easy to lose. Seemingly small, simple things can cause our motivation to plummet even if we don’t consciously realize it. That’s why it’s so important to identify ways to motivate employees that actually work.

So what can you do to ensure your team feels motivated? And that they stay motivated?

Practice psychological safety; don’t just say you do

A culture of psychological safety isn’t just a nice to have. Saying you have it also doesn’t mean that you actually do.

You have to actively practice psychological safety. Encourage your people to take risks. Don’t punish them for mistakes.

To paraphrase Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren racing, making one mistake is fine. Just don’t make the same mistake twice.

Mistakes are where learnings lie. If no one within your organization has ever made a mistake, or they’re afraid to make them, neither your employees nor your business will grow as fast as they could.

Value EVERYONE’S opinions

We’ve all had times where we feel powerless. Voiceless. It’s disheartening. Demotivating. Demoralizing.

Feeling like our voice matters, like it’s being heard, is among the best ways to motivate employees. It also encourages us to be more creative. Which in turn makes us better problem solvers, means we have more innovative ideas, and makes us more fun to be around.

You never know where the next great idea for your business will come from. Your office cleaner could be great at B2B TikTok; your IT guy might be a talented writer.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask and make it clear that you do want people’s opinions. Even if those ideas are outside of their usual remit. Those can often be where your most creative ideas come from.

Get some face time

Whether it’s in person or on video, seeing others can remind people that they’re not alone. And working remotely can be lonely. So can working from a cubicle. Either can lead to employees feeling isolated and like their colleagues don’t listen to or care about what they have to say.

Meetings, or even just casual coffees, help employees connect. This makes collaboration easier when it comes to work-related projects. It’s one of the quickest ways to motivate employees.

Set up employee groups

Another way you can help your employees connect is with ERGs. These groups enable people to get to know their colleagues beyond what they do at work. This improves workplace dynamics, facilitating communication between teams that need to collaborate but don’t always see eye to eye, such as sales and marketing.

If you’d like to get the most from your ERGs, get in touch today to book your free Workrowd demo.

Offer reverse mentoring

Reverse mentoring is when a junior employee mentors someone more senior. This is useful for bridging generational divides, spreading digital literacy, and holding leadership accountable.

It can also be hugely motivating. It gives younger employees something to work towards because they can see what’s possible.

In addition, the mentor and mentee can support each other to achieve goals, which is a big deal when it comes to ways to motivate employees.

Gamify objectives

Workplace competitions rank high on the list of ways to motivate employees. You could offer different rewards, from branded merchandise to a day out with their family to a voucher for their favorite store.

Some employees will feel motivated by competing with themselves, while others will be motivated by competing with their colleagues. 

For example, you could have a leaderboard that rewards points for specific actions. A company trying to gamify social selling could give points for different activities online. This encourages employees to act while giving them a benchmark against themselves or their colleagues to compete with.

You could also take a note from apps such as Peloton, and have a way for employees to track their daily or weekly streaks. A sales team could have a streak for sending outbound emails, for example. It’s an opportunity to get creative around ways to motivate employees.

Shake things up

When a role feels repetitive or monotonous, it can be debilitating and draining. Our brains disengage and we stop putting in effort. 

To prevent this from happening, find ways to make roles more interesting and less repetitive. You could give employees challenges, run competitions, or try different strategies and techniques.

Encourage creativity

We live in a world that’s increasingly outsourcing creativity, but at what cost?

Creativity is part of what makes us human and what makes life interesting. By relying on AI to do the heavy lifting, we risk our critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and creative muscles.

Empowering employees to be creative in their roles, however that may look for them, helps them exercise their creative muscles. This can then lead to stronger creative and problem-solving skills in the future that make them better employees, too. It’s one of the ways to motivate employees that has the most staying power.

Make friends

When we like the people we work with, it’s a lot easier to go into the office every day. It’s easier to open our laptops and sign in.

Friendship is a simple but powerful tool that fosters loyalty, engagement, and interest in what someone is doing. It enables people to feel valued and helps ensure they’re heard by others in the organization.

Online or in-person events are one of the best ways to encourage workplace friendships. ERGs are another great way to connect your employees.

Whether you’re running an event or want to set up an ERG, Workrowd can help. It’s an all-in-one employee engagement tool designed to make everyone’s lives easier and help you and your people perform at your best.

Everything employees need to know can be stored in one place, ensuring they never miss what’s relevant to them. It helps you highlight all the ways to motivate employees you offer, in order to maximize your ROI. Get in touch today to find out more.

Conclusion

Finding ways to motivate employees in 2025 can be easier said than done, especially with everything that’s happening in the world right now. With these tips, you can help your people stay engaged and motivated so that they’re always bringing their best selves to work.

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Company Culture

6 ways to help your team make work friends, and why you should

Quite often, employees work in silos. They stick to their teams and the people they need to work with on a regular basis. Beyond that they don’t really talk to anyone else. And they certainly don’t try to make work friends.

This can lead to tasks getting done twice, knowledge silos, confusion, disconnection, lack of collaboration, and so much more.

On the other hand, when employees have work friends from other departments, it can increase collaboration, make everyone more efficient, and lead to a more welcoming work environment.

81% feel that work friends are highly important while 78% say they benefit mental health. Having work friends can also help employees feel more engaged, satisfied in their roles, and connected to work.

So let’s dive into why work friends matter and how you can build connections between employees.

Why work friends matter

We live in a world where people are lonelier than ever. They’re falling back on AI to become their new besties, and that’s just…dystopian. AI can’t replace true human connection, but it can become a sycophant that no human friend can compete with because it will always tell you what you want to hear.

I digress.

Work friends encourage employee engagement. They encourage collaboration. They make your business a more welcoming place to be for employees both new and old.

82% feel work friendships improve employee happiness and job satisfaction, while 81% feel they improve productivity.

The majority of professionals, especially Gen Z-ers, think companies should facilitate work friendships through non-work-related activities like holiday parties or happy hours.

Despite all this, ¼ feel their employer isn’t focused on activities or events that lead to work friendships.

People without work friends are more likely to feel isolated. Interestingly, 58% of employees believe relying too much on digital channels is a huge barrier to making work friends.

Taking steps to combat loneliness improves your employer brand and shows your team members that you care about more than just making money.

How to connect your team with work friends

So now that we’ve looked into why work friends are important, let’s dive into how to connect your team with work friends:

ERGs

Employee groups are essential tools for connecting people across your organization to work friends. Groups focused on inclusion are of particular interest for mid-level and senior employees.

Wherever employees work from, ERGs mean they can meet like-minded people with similar interests, goals, or backgrounds to them. This creates a stronger connection to the workplace, making them want to start work every day.

It also helps make work feel less monotonous because people are engaging with more than just the same colleagues every day.

Workrowd is a powerful tool to help you run your ERGs and other employee initiatives. Employees can see all your groups in one place and choose which ones to join. They can also get the latest updates, sign up for events, and so much more. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

In-person events

One of the best ways to strengthen friendships and form new ones is meeting someone in person. Networking events, breakfasts, lunches, courses—they’re all useful ways for people to get to know their colleagues and find work friends.

Bake sales are another option you could try. I’ve found anything that revolves around food or drink usually works well for bringing people together. And you could even run it to raise money for charity, making it a double win.

Online events

For remote teams, events can be more challenging, but they’re not impossible. You just need a little creativity.

Everything from online gaming tournaments to quizzes to book clubs can work as online events that are open to everyone.

Volunteering 

Volunteering is a really effective way for employees to meet new people, break out of their comfort zones, and make a difference to the world. Many businesses offer a handful of days per year that employees can take to volunteer.

If you have a formal volunteering scheme, this can also be a way for employees to connect with colleagues and get to know them outside of the context of work. It’s a way to strengthen friendships and form new ones.

Support people’s wins

Whether it’s running a marathon, publishing a book, getting married, or something else, celebrating employees’ personal wins shows that you care about them beyond what they do for your business. It creates a deeper human connection and makes them feel like a valued part of your organization.

You don’t have to do anything major, but a “good luck” post on Slack, or even donating a little to their charity run can go a long way. Encouraging others to do the same helps people feel supported and enables them to connect with others who could become work friends.

Set up a challenge

Challenges employees can take part in, such as raising money for a particular charity, or collectively running a certain distance, give them something to aim for as a group.

It creates a shared goal where they can keep each other motivated and celebrate achieving something together with their work friends.

Conclusion 

Work friends are one of the most powerful, but underestimated, employee motivation tools in your arsenal.

When people like who they work with, they want to show up in every sense of the word. They’ll work harder and be more present, so they’ll perform better and be happier. Which makes your workplace more welcoming and productive for every employee.

Help work friendships thrive

If you’d like to provide more opportunities for team members to find work friends, why not try Workrowd? You can organize employee events, set up ERGs, and so much more. Get in touch to learn how we can help you reach your employee experience goals.

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Wellness

8 ways to support employee wellbeing on a budget

We live in a world that’s divisive, lonely, and frankly, scary. Sweeping things under the rug and pretending like none of it is happening does nobody any favors. In fact, it’s likely to make people feel worse and hurt employee wellbeing.

Bottling up emotions can cause everything from mental health conditions to chronic pain. So neglecting employee wellbeing can lead to costly medical bills. It can also mean you lose employees to sick leave or disengagement.

Beyond that, it increases business costs: $322 billion is lost globally due to turnover because of employee burnout. 75% of medical costs are the result of preventable conditions.

Work is a huge factor for this. 84% of employees state that work conditions contributed to at least one mental health challenge.

So supporting employee wellbeing is obviously important. 87% of employees consider health and wellness offerings when job hunting. What’s more, 90% report feeling more motivated if leaders support their wellbeing.

So now that we’ve covered why employee wellbeing matters, let’s dive into how you can support it on a budget:

How to support employee wellbeing on a budget

Listen to employees’ needs

To get the most from your team, it’s important to ask what support they need, then act on it. That’s the shortest path to improving employee wellbeing.

Asking what employees want, then not implementing it, breaks their trust and will cause them to disengage.

Acting based on what they want and need from you, on the other hand, increases engagement and ensures they can perform to their fullest.

Host events

Encouraging employees to connect with each other is a simple way to combat one of the biggest causes of health issues: loneliness.

Mental health is declining at a startling rate. Connecting employees in person or online for book clubs, lunch and learns, or other team-building activities shows that you value connection beyond the transactional relationships that happen at work. It can give employee wellbeing a big boost.

Set up ERGs

Employee resource groups are a simple way to connect your team members. They help combat loneliness that can decrease motivation and productivity, while increasing collaboration between teams as they get to know each other beyond traditional role boundaries.

Want to ensure you’re getting the most from your employee groups? Workrowd can help you manage your groups and activities so that you can see what’s working, employees feel compelled to use them, and they stay engaged. Get in touch to find out more.

Encourage employees to take PTO

Many employees feel so busy that they don’t take all their paid leave each year. But this creates a vicious cycle. Without taking their leave, they risk becoming sick and burnt out. They need to learn that their department can run without them, whatever their role is. And things at work are rarely as urgent as they seem.

As one of my former colleagues once said to me: ‘we’re not changing the world – it’s not life or death. Things can wait a few days.’

While there will be some places where it is life or death, for most of us, this rings true.

Taking time off is important for all of us. Being a workaholic can increase stress levels and mean that when an employee does finally take a break, they become sick because they were running on adrenaline for so long that their immune system crashes and they’re susceptible to every germ they come into contact with.

So, even if they’re a remote employee and they spend their week off at the same desk, but gaming instead of working, encourage them to disconnect from work once in a while to improve employee wellbeing.

Respect work hours

Another thing that can lead to burnout is working too many hours without time to switch off.

Employees shouldn’t feel the need to respond at midnight just because that’s when the CEO, who works in a different time zone, sent an email.

They should work when they’re at their best, during their work hours. That’s how you’ll get the most from them and maximize employee wellbeing.

Remember: breaks are your friend

Tying into respecting work hours is the fact that we all need regular breaks.

Breaks allow us to clear our heads and come back to solving problems more effectively.

Sometimes the answer is right in front of us, but we’ve been looking at a challenge too long to fully see it. A five-minute break to get a drink or go for a walk can help us recalibrate and solve a problem faster than staying glued to a desk, staring at a screen and growing increasingly frustrated.

Offer flexible working hours

The traditional 9-5 model doesn’t work with a lot of people’s circadian rhythms. But we’re stuck in a cycle that we can’t seem to break out of. Even though there are no scientific reasons to use the 9-5 model.

Some people are more productive in the afternoons or evenings. Some people get up at five in the morning and have written thousands of words before others have had their first coffee.

Embracing these differing schedules ensures that you have the most effective, productive team possible. It could enable you to have employees working around the clock to solve customer problems, too. This can help you provide a better quality of service alongside boosting employee wellbeing. 

Consider part-time work or freelancers

Many jobs don’t actually need to be full-time. In fact, you might get better value for your money by employing someone to work part-time or freelance instead.

Too often, full-time work can be full of busywork. There can be scope creep, or priorities can get confused. Tasks get turned into meetings that don’t actually need to be meetings.

No one can concentrate for eight hours nonstop, five days a week. To convince ourselves that’s happening with anyone is a lie. A lie that hurts employee wellbeing

Conclusion

It’s not difficult to support employee wellbeing on a budget. It simply requires being willing to make accommodations around employees’ needs. And keeping in mind that what they need at one point may be different from what they need in six months’ time.

If you’re ready to up your game on employee wellbeing, Workrowd has your back. With all your employee initiatives available in one place, plus automated surveys and real-time analytics, everyone can tap into what they need with less stress. Get in touch to learn more and schedule your free demo today.

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Employee Engagement

8 ways to boost collaboration and teamwork in the workplace

Whatever industry you’re in, teamwork in the workplace is vital to keep things moving. When colleagues don’t get along, or don’t know how to communicate, it slows processes down, stresses out employees, and costs you money. The longer this lack of cooperation continues, the more expensive it gets.

97% of employees agree that a lack of collaboration negatively impacts workplace success, too. Meanwhile, teamwork increases sales by 27%.

So, it makes sense to boost collaboration and teamwork in the workplace. The more you do so, the more it benefits your business.

Why does teamwork in the workplace matter?

One of the most common examples of this is between sales and marketing departments. Marketing departments focus on generating leads through various strategies like content, ads, or direct response.

Sales then handles the leads that come in. Or they find ways to attract leads on their own, such as with outbound sales tactics.

Even if sales concentrates on outbound, they still need the marketing department to create useful sales collateral that whets buyers’ appetites, like case studies.

When the two departments don’t work together, sales teams don’t get the collateral they need and marketing has no direction. That leaves them to essentially make things up as they go along, tracking vanity metrics, and hoping for the best.

This is pretty common, too, with more than half of US employees having little or no insight into other team’s objectives, and 41% finding it more challenging to collaborate across teams.

On the flip side, there’s a 72% boost in effectiveness when team collaboration is high, and effective teamwork in the workplace reduces absenteeism and enhances engagement.

So, what can you do to boost teamwork in the workplace?

Ways to boost collaboration and teamwork in the workplace

Organize an away day

Away days or weeks can be powerful ways to get your teams together. Employees get time to get to know one another, plan what’s happening, and discuss things that aren’t work-related.

It’s important for everyone to have down/alone time too. This is where people can recharge and naturally come together to connect without the pressure of work-related activities.

Create online events

If you have a remote team or office, providing online events ensures that they don’t miss out on opportunities for collaboration and teamwork in the workplace.

Some options include:

  • Quizzes
  • Book clubs
  • Speakers
  • Games/tournaments such as MarioKart

To encourage your employees to sign up and take part, try Workrowd. They simply need to login to see what’s happening, then they can sign up for events or initiatives with a single click.

Host networking events

As well as online events, you can also hold networking events where colleagues can meet, whether that’s in person or online. These can be vital ways for colleagues to get to know each other without the pressure of it being in a meeting.

Adding in food always works as a solid barrier-breaker and conversation starter, too. This relationship-building can greatly enhance teamwork in the workplace.

Provide mentoring

Mentoring supports everyone within your organization. It can introduce your more experienced colleagues to new concepts, while it can teach early careers employees how to navigate the workplace.

Mentors can come from any department or generation. It doesn’t have to be from someone who’s navigated the same career path. Sometimes it can be other characteristics or goals a mentor and mentee have in common, such as navigating gender in the workplace or wanting to become a leader.

Create a psychologically safe culture

A culture of psychological safety is crucial to teamwork in the workplace. When employees feel able to share their opinions free from repercussions, it creates a more open environment that encourages collaboration.

For employees to disagree with someone, they have to feel safe in the workplace—especially if that person is their leader. There’s no reason that leader’s opinions, beliefs, attitudes, or ways of working shouldn’t be challenged.

Sometimes there are newer, better, and more effective ways of doing things that can only be seen because someone comes from a particular background. To excel as a business, it’s important to be open to hearing those opinions and experiences.

Use radical candor

Radical candor isn’t a new concept. It’s about being able to be honest and empathetic with your colleagues when communicating. It’s about providing feedback that’s valuable in a polite, straightforward way.

Radical candor is an effective way to build an open, honest culture among colleagues. It also provides a framework for giving and receiving feedback that ensures people know what to expect from their colleagues and how to talk to them.

Giving feedback, like listening, is one of those things that many of us are never taught. It can have big repercussions on teamwork in the workplace if we’re not careful.

Listen actively

There’s a huge difference between paying attention to what someone is saying and casually hearing it.

Active listening requires asking questions that draw out their point and turning it into a discussion, rather than nodding along, half-listening to them.

Use your employee resource groups (ERGs) more

If you’ve already got established ERGs, are they working hard enough for you?

If you don’t have any ERGs, what are you waiting for?

Think of an away day. How often do people naturally sit with their fellow team members? It happens every time. People gravitate to the people they know and have something in common with.

Employee resource groups are a powerful tool to bridge gaps between teams and increase teamwork in the workplace. People can connect on terms beyond just the team they’re a part of.

Conclusion 

The more opportunities you provide for your employees to connect beyond their workplace responsibilities, the better they’ll get to know each other’s strengths, can play to them, and can therefore work together more effectively.

If you’d like help organizing your initiatives and encouraging your employees to take part, check out Workrowd. Contact us to book your free demo today.

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Employee Retention

How to fire an employee without hurting your company culture

If you’re looking for tips on how to fire an employee, you’ve come to the right place.

Needing to fire an employee usually happens because of a fault on the employee’s part. Compare this to layoffs which happen because a company is downsizing.

Firing is challenging for everyone involved. If you navigate it successfully, your company’s future, productivity, and team dynamics can come out unscathed.

Navigate it poorly and you could find that your company culture suffers, your productivity declines, and employees start to leave or quiet quit.

Firing is so common that 40% of Americans have been fired from a job.

When firing someone who’s going to replaced, it costs between 16.1% and 20.4% of their annual salary. For senior executives, this rises to 213%.

Reasons to fire an employee

Some of the reasons you may fire an employee include:

  • Drug or alcohol use at work
  • Sexual harassment
  • Bullying
  • Property damage
  • Theft
  • Policy violations
  • Poor performance

You may also fire an employee for another reason or a combination. Be sure to have documented evidence of employees’ violations if you’re letting someone go for any of these issues.

The reason or reasons behind the termination may impact your approach in how to fire an employee.

How to fire an employee

So what should you take into account when considering how to fire an employee?

Don’t do it out of nowhere

An employee should have some awareness that this is coming.

For instance, if you’re firing them because of poor performance, you should’ve already spoken to them about their performance and set out a path for them to improve it.

If it’s behavior-related, they should have received a warning and had the opportunity to fix things. Surprising someone is rarely the best approach when it comes to how to fire an employee.

Give them a chance to improve

If you want to fire someone because of poor performance, it’s important to first give them the chance to improve. 

Explain what your issues with their performance are and work on a plan to get their output to where you need it to be. This ensures you’re not acting in haste and are still abiding by the law.

To help them improve, could you offer some form of training? For instance, get a colleague to mentor them, sign them up for an online course, or send them away for a training day to upskill them.

Check the rules

When thinking about how to fire an employee, it’s important to abide by the law. Depending on where you’re based, the law will vary, so be sure you know exactly what the rules are around firing employees.

Also keep on top of changes to the law.

For instance, the UK’s upcoming employment rights bill plans to make firing and rehiring practices illegal. It isn’t in place yet, but it’s a policy that’s popular with voters. If it does get approved, new regulations will likely be in place in 2026.

Follow company policy

You’re likely to have some sort of company policy around how to fire an employee. 

Following this procedure will ensure that you remain in compliance with the law and your company’s requirements. It will also make the process less stressful and more streamlined for you as the steps you need to take are already laid out.

Prepare before the meeting

Ensure you have everything you need before the meeting. If you’re firing someone because of misconduct, have the evidence with you to present during the meeting.

Clearly make a note of what you’re going to say and stick to it. This isn’t the meeting for pleasantries or tangents about what you watched on Netflix last night. Small talk isn’t helpful when it comes to how to fire an employee

Have a neutral third-party present

Having a neutral third-party present when you fire an employee protects both of you. It can also help prevent emotions from escalating.

As an alternative, you could record the meeting if it’s done over video call.

Keep the meeting short

A meeting to fire an employee is likely going to be awkward. Keep it short to allow them to save face and reduce the stress for yourself. 

Explain yourself clearly and don’t tiptoe around why you’re firing them. Skirting uncomfortable topics only makes things more awkward.

Once your employee knows they’re leaving, they’ll need time to process the news and their emotions. Give them that space and ensure they can empty out their desk without their colleagues’ watchful eyes.

When thinking about how to fire an employee, it’s important to consider ways to make it less painful for everyone.

Document everything

Keep a record of every conversation. This covers you, the business, and the departing employee legally if something goes wrong.

Show some emotional intelligence

If you’re firing an employee or laying them off, don’t talk about a vacation you’re about to go on. Understand this will be difficult for them whatever the reason behind the firing and keep that in mind. 

It’s okay to show emotion here—that might actually work in your favor.

However, don’t get personal. If you’re trying to be mindful of how to fire an employee, this isn’t the time for personal conversations. You don’t want to come across as callous and detached. Empathy is key.

Get someone else to review your communications

If you’re writing a particularly long email, or one with legal ramifications, get a second pair of eyes—particularly from colleagues in legal—to review your communication before sending. 

This will protect you and the employee, as well as ensure that what you’re saying comes across in the right way.

Retrieve company equipment

Make sure to organize retrieving company equipment the employee may have such as a laptop. If they work remotely, arrange a courier to pick it up. If you’re firing them in person, ask them to leave behind their equipment when they go.

Close their accounts and redirect logins

Make sure to close their email account and any other accounts they may use. For logins, change passwords to ensure they can’t still get in and post negative things as your brand on social media, for example.

Explain severance packages

If applicable, explain the severance package to your employee. Let them know about how their firing will impact any benefits and when they’ll get their last paycheck.

Clarity and communication are important at all stages of the process when it comes to how to fire an employee.

Evaluate the process

If you’re firing an employee because they’re the wrong cultural fit, does the issue lie with them, or with you? Is there something you could do to improve your hiring practices and prevent this from happening again? For example, should you go into more detail about your company culture or role requirements on job descriptions?

Or, if the issue lies later in the process, could you offer more training during onboarding so that employees get up to speed faster?

Also consider your process on how to fire an employee and if there’s anything you could’ve done differently.

Conclusion

Firing an employee is an uncomfortable experience for everyone involved. The more you do to make the process as smooth as possible, the less stressful it will be for managers and the fired employee.

Making a plan for how to fire an employee starts well before the actual termination. Your hiring process, training opportunities, and company culture, all factor in. Want to make sure you’re setting every employee up for success? Workrowd can help.

Our all-in-one tool suite ensures your team members can make the most of your employee experience. With easy access to everything you offer at their fingertips, they’ll be positioned to thrive from day one.

Ready to learn more? Contact us to find out how we can supercharge engagement and culture in your organization.

Building a disability employee resource group that drives impact
Why you need to set up an employee resource group for women
ERG leadership tips to maximize your groups’ impact