Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

7 ideas to make back to school easier for working parents

Providing support to working parents doesn’t stop at creating an excellent parental leave program. As back to school approaches for working parents, we have to be thoughtful about the perks we provide our employees. Keep reading for a deep dive into how you can help mothers, fathers, and other child caregivers on your staff.

Why Back to School Is Difficult for Working Parents

Back to school is a complicated time for many working parents. There is so much to do and new routines to learn. New school years typically bring new afterschool activities and experiences that kids want to be a part of. Parents want to be able to say yes to their children. Working a 9-5 while kids are getting adjusted to their new schedule isn’t always a walk in the park.

Eventually, busy parents learn to balance responsibilities and get back to normal at work, but you can probably expect the first few weeks of school to be rocky.

7 Ideas to Make Back to School Easier for Working Parents

Having employees with families is amazing. Employees have families when they feel financially and emotionally supported. It’s a great sign that your organization makes employees feel safe. So, how can you improve this experience at work? Here are some ideas to help get you started.

1. Give Employees Flexibility While They Figure Out Their New Schedule

During the first few months of the school year, flexibility should be your top priority. Consider letting employees work from home or create a hybrid work environment for employees during this time.

Encourage working parents by adjusting your late policy as parents get their children acclimated to going back to school. Working parents shouldn’t have to feel rushed if they aren’t needed for an important meeting.

You could also adjust leave policies to ensure that parents have time to pick up their kids and get them proper care. During this time company parents might have a split schedule (for example, parents might work 9 AM-3 PM and 7 PM-9 PM.)

2. Let Working Parents in Management Tell Their Story

Employees model what they see. If your team sees employees talking about their families and adjusting to their kids going back to school, it will help them own their stories.

For instance, you could start a thread in your company’s digital community space around being a working parent and what you are doing to start the school year. Shared learning is a great way to get other leaders to share their stories while making these conversations public for the entire company to see/hear.

3. Provide a Dependent Care-Focused FSA

Flexible spending accounts or FSAs are a great company perk. There are several FSA options, including medical, dependent, and home office FSAs.

If you have an FSA program, consider adding a dependent care component so that working parents can spend money on their children. Many dependent care FSA options give working parents the ability to pay for before/after school care, babysitters, daycare, summer camps, etc.

Using a flexible spending account is great because you get to contribute pre-tax dollars. This is a helpful arrangement for parents because they were already paying for childcare, now they get to pay fewer taxes because they use an FSA.

4. Create an Employee Resource Group for Working Parents

Employee resource groups are another fantastic employee perk. Working parents can learn so much from each other if they work together. ERGs create networks among your employees. For instance, an ERG for working parents might help set up a babysitting schedule, parties for kids, or any number of activities. We all need a bit of a helping hand sometimes.

5. Send Out a Fun Gift for Working Parents

Who doesn’t love a fun gift to start the school year? If you want to support your working parents, send them a useful gift to get them excited. Here are some interesting ideas your organization can use:

  • Week of laundry service.
  • Gift card to their favorite restaurant or delivery service.
  • Basket of snacks the family can enjoy.
  • School year planner to keep everyone’s activities straight.
  • Date/solo night out for parents on your team.

Anything you can do to treat your parents as they are going through transitions at home is wonderful.

6. Encourage Managers to Chat With Parents About Their Current Workload

It can be challenging to mention what you need help with. Your working parents might be drowning in back-to-school activities, and their managers might never know. Instead of letting your parents suffer in silence, encourage managers to reach out proactively.

Keep tabs on when your employees’ kids go back to school. Then, right before they go back to campus, encourage managers to talk with their working parents. Ask questions like:

  • What do you need from the company to balance your current workload?
  • Are you in need of any financial assistance or resources to help you take care of your family right now?
  • When would be a more convenient time for you to start and end work while your kids are in school?
  • Are there any processes that you do manually that we could automate to save time in your day?
  • What have other companies done in the past that made you feel more supported as a parent?

7. Make Sure Employees Know You Are There for Them

Above all else, your employees need to know that you are there for them. Parenting isn’t an easy task and, amazingly, your employees trust their job enough to have kids. How can you further show your team that you are there for them no matter what?

As parents get ready for back to school, send them a quick video or message showcasing your support. Make sure that you’re letting your team know about all the help and resources that are available to them. Show up before they ever need to ask you for something.

Conclusion

Back to school time shouldn’t be challenging for working parents. Companies should be willing to give a little as parents and their children adjust to new routines and schedules. Your parents need your support during this time of the year.

One of the best resources you can offer mothers and fathers is a resource group dedicated to working parents. You can use Workrowd to offer this community to your team. If you are interested in our software, send us an email at hello@workrowd.com to see if we’d be right for your team.

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

20+ resources for becoming an ally in the workplace

Becoming an ally to women and communities of color in the workplace isn’t easy, but it’s fulfilling work. There is so much to learn about, and you want to make sure that you aren’t putting the onus on underrepresented colleagues to teach you. Today, we wanted to walk through a few interesting books, movies, and podcasts you can turn to time and again. So let’s talk through what it means to be an ally along with 20+ resources to help you on your journey.

What Does It Mean to Become an Ally in the Workplace?

First, let’s walk through what it means to become an ally to women and colleagues of color in the workplace.

One of the most helpful definitions of ally comes from Merriam-Webster: “one that is associated with another as a helper: a person or group that provides assistance and support in an ongoing effort, activity, or struggle.”

It can be hard to give an exact definition to the word ‘ally’ because they change every day. Sometimes allies need to be more vocal; sometimes quiet support is appreciated. Either way, underrepresented groups at your company can find value in having great allies at work.

20+ Resources to Help You Become a Better Ally

So, where do you start if you want to become a better ally? You can start by educating yourself with books, movies, and podcasts. Then, once you’ve done some work, you might want to reach out and have conversations with staff members at your organization.

Let’s begin walking through some helpful resources:

Books to Help You Become a Better Ally

First, let’s uncover some interesting books that you can lean on to become a better ally to people of color. There are so many books that can help you untangle the interesting relationships we have with race in the United States (and the world.) Here are a few books to help you get started on your journey:

  1. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  2. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
  3. Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  4. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  5. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  6. Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
  7. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
  8. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
  9. So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  10. Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt

Movies/Documentaries That Can Help Your Team Support Each Other

Next, let’s walk through a few movies and documentaries to help you grapple with these issues further. If you are a visual learner, these resources are a great place to start.

  1. 13th
  2. Just Mercy
  3. Time: The Kalief Browder Story
  4. Hidden Figures
  5. The Hate U Give (also a great book!)
  6. On The Basis Of Sex
  7. When They See Us
  8. Eyes On The Prize
  9. If Beale Street Could Talk
  10. Selma

Podcasts You Can Listen to if You Want to Hear More Stories

Next, let’s go through a few podcasts. Podcasts are great because they act as frequently updated resources you can continue to listen in on. In addition, these podcasts often feature conversations with stellar thought leaders in the diversity and inclusion space. Listen to a few episodes with thought leaders you love or topics that interest you. Before you know it, you’ll be able to have great conversations as an ally.

  1. Code Switch
  2. Women at Work
  3. The Diversity Gap
  4. All Inclusive
  5. Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox
  6. Inclusion Catalyst
  7. The Will To Change: Uncovering True Stories of Diversity & Inclusion

Discussions With Coworkers Can Open Your Heart

The last resource we’ll briefly mention is your coworkers. It’s important that you limit using your coworkers as a resource to protect their mental and emotional energy. Allies should get information from a variety of sources. If you are ready to have a more in-depth conversation, don’t hesitate to reach out to a friend at work.

During those conversations, listen deeply. Ask great questions and let your teammate know that you value their time and energy. It’s not easy sharing details about your experience with sexism, racism, or any -ism. Use this time with your colleagues wisely.

How Can You Act On These Ally-Building Resources?

So, now that you have all of these resources, how do you use them? Let’s walk through a few ideas to get you started.

Listen to Your Friends, Colleagues, and Experts (Really!)

First, you want to spend time listening to the people you are trying to learn from. When you hear things that contradict your reality, you might tend to interject or spend time crafting your rebuttal instead of listening deeply. This style of listening can be damaging because it puts both people on the defensive.

Instead, try getting out of your head. Listen with intent and absorb the information you are given. Summarize what you are getting from the person, and then act based on the correct summary. Listening isn’t always easy, but we have to respond based on a full set of facts.

Bring These Conversations up With Employees Who Look Like You

It can be challenging for employees to learn about diversity and inclusion from people who don’t look like them. If you want to be an ally, try starting these conversations with colleagues who share your same demographic makeup. This is especially important for allies who belong to well-represented groups.

Mentor Team Members Who Need It

Mentorship at work is essential. In fact, mentoring can be a huge positive for women and people of color. Don’t assume underrepresented groups will jump at the chance to get mentored by you, but if the situation arises, welcome it.

Host a Watch/Read/Listen-Along

Now that you have all of these resources, put some energy into hosting events with colleagues. You can easily host a watch/read/listen-along with your coworkers. Becoming an ally in the workplace is all about finding room for important conversations. Sometimes the easiest way to do that is by creating conversations through a book club or movie discussion.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you are on your way to being an amazing ally at work. Hopefully, today’s article gave you some food for thought as you consider what to learn about next.

One way to be a better workplace ally is to join an established employee resource group. If your organization needs help creating ERGs, start with a platform like Workrowd that helps you create employee communities. Do you want to know if we’re right for your organization? Send us an email at hello@workrowd.com.

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Employee Engagement

Team engagement ideas employees will actually appreciate in 2021

As your organization grows, you need to find new ways to keep your team excited about the work they do. Investing in team engagement isn’t as difficult as you think it is. Today, we wanted to share what team engagement is and offer some ideas to help you build a strong workplace.

What Is Team Engagement?

When it comes to employee engagement, it’s so important for departments or teams to be tapped in and excited about the work they’re assigned to do. You can take the most engaged employee and place them in a department they dislike, and you’ll see that your company’s work suffers.

Team engagement is about building a system where different groups within your organization thrive and feel highly connected to your company’s mission. Employees need to get along with each other and be positioned to drive business outcomes.

When it comes down to it, we are all working toward a common goal: ensuring business success by doing the job we were hired to do. If we are all aligned and working together, we can accomplish our shared goal more easily.

8 Team Engagement Ideas to Get You Started

So, now that we know the purpose of team engagement, how do we make it happen? Here are some excellent ideas to help get you started:

1. Make Sure Your Employees Are in Jobs They Love

There is a common business phrase for companies using the Entrepreneurial Operating System: Right people, right seats. The intent here is simple: get the people who understand your company culture into the right seat or job in your organization.

It’s a two-pronged approach. You need both aspects of this mechanism for your hires to feel engaged and excited about the work. First, they have to understand and love the company they work for. Second, they need to enjoy their work.

It takes time to get people adjusted to fit this methodology, but your employees will feel much more engaged once you get there.

2. Provide Flexible Work Opportunities for Employees

Flexible work is crucial today. As a result, many companies are leaning on hybrid or remote work to create a better work environment for employees.

The truth is that some of your employees don’t want to be in an office. It’s not because they dislike the company or their colleagues. These employees might have a family to take care of at home, or they may identify as introverts and enjoy time away from people.

Forcing employees to come to work when they aren’t happy is a recipe for disaster. If employees can work from home, let them. This will make your employees happier. Since team members can choose where they would like to work, employees at home/in the office will be more engaged.

3. Include Team Building Activities in Your Corporate Culture

As a leader, you have the power to create an environment where people want to come to work every single day.

You are responsible for creating an engaging culture at your company that is based on values your team finds important.

These values should be reflected throughout your entire business operation and serve as guidelines for building effective teams.

Team building isn’t just something your organization does to pass the time. When you use effective team building strategies, you can build an organization where workers trust that teammates have their best interests in mind. Trust is foundational to a fantastic company culture.

4. Provide Team-Centered Professional Development Opportunities

One of the most important things you can provide is professional development opportunities that allow team members to grow as individuals and part of a larger group.

You could provide these opportunities by offering a training program or seminar. Choose topics like leadership skills, personal growth, communication techniques, etc. These topics will help your team build skills that will improve their bond and working relationship.

It doesn’t have to cost much money; it just has to allow people to learn new ways to improve themselves while working together toward common goals.

5. Invest Energy in a New Product or Service

When did you last release a new product or service? New products and services allow your team to rally around something new and unique. There is so much learning and bonding that happens as a team is beginning to sell something new. Alternatively, you can put renewed energy into a product that you haven’t thought about in a while.

As your organization grows, putting intense effort into one aspect of your business can help your team bond. Of course, you should never release a product just to help your team connect, but it never hurts to be innovative if the result is a quality product.

6. Create a Stellar Employee Resource Group Experience

Employee resource groups are a helpful, cross-departmental investment for growing organizations. ERGs are a great way to improve your company’s employee experience while bringing people from different departments together.

Many organizations struggle when it comes to building effective resource groups for their team. However, it’s not as challenging as it might seem.

Start by looking at your organization’s demographics, then work with company executives to find motivated individuals to lead your new groups. Finally, you want to focus on the resources you give those employees. These leaders are doing you a favor by running these groups, so you want to support them however you can.

7. Promote the Best Company Leaders

Getting passed up for a promotion you feel like you deserve is tough. Unfortunately, many employees know that feeling all too well. Picking the right leaders to promote has a tremendous impact on team engagement.

For instance, you’ve probably seen a person you admire get stuck in a position that doesn’t play to their strengths. This person has played a large part in your tenure at the company, but management does not see it that way. Over time, this lack of promotion will impact you because you know how great this employee is.

You can imagine that most employees have a work friend/mentor that they feel makes an amazing leader. Over time, passing on these potential leaders can cause resentment among those employees (and the employees who adore them.)

The next time you consider promotions, think about the employees who have been neglected before.

8. Utilize Employee Engagement Surveys to Uncover Trends

Finally, let’s talk about employee engagement surveys. As your team grows, it gets harder to tap into what employees are thinking. You have to be able to uncover trends at a larger scale to make the best decisions.

Employee engagement surveys help you take the pulse of your entire team. Companies use tools like Gallup’s Q12 survey to understand how they can best support their staff members. If you have access to these scores over time, you will eventually be able to make big changes at work.

Conclusion: Team Engagement Is Essential

As your organization grows, you have to shift your mindset from employee to team. Today’s blog post can help you set up a team engagement program to help you start the process. Pick a few activities that speak to your organization, and implement them over the next few weeks.

Are you looking to build your team engagement strategy through employee resource groups? See if Workrowd is right for your team! Send us an email at hello@workrowd.com to learn more about our ecosystem of resources for employee communities.

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Empowering managers to drive diversity, equity, and inclusion

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are important topics for HR leaders and managers to discuss. However, there are several reasons why your leaders may have chosen to forego championing DEI at your organization. Whatever the reason, it’s in the company’s best interests to focus on empowering managers to drive these company-wide initiatives.

This article will go over a few tactics you can use to guide DEI discussions at work.

1. Focus on the Statistics

First, you’ll want to focus on statistics.

If your managers are like most, they’ll appreciate learning about any statistics you have about DEI. Numbers help managers understand the weight of the situation. How can improving diversity, equity, and inclusion drive growth at your organization?

Alternatively, seek inside statistics. For example, you could conduct a diversity, equity, and inclusion survey to see where your company stands on the issue. Managers understand the value of making their employees happy, which might encourage more managers to drive DEI.

2. Seek Inspiration From Other Organizations

Some companies are doing better than others when it comes to DEI.

Getting inspiration from other companies helps managers understand the bigger picture. As a result, these companies become a picture of diversity and something to aspire to in their own efforts.

You can help your team leaders by investing in tools like the Global ERG Network. Networks like this empower managers by giving them a community of supportive colleagues who are dealing with the same workplace DEI issues. When a manager is a member of a network like this, they can learn from the mistakes and wins of other leaders.

In addition to networking with other companies, competitors can be a great resource as well. Your managers want to be able to stand out above the competition. Show company leaders how competitors are moving DEI initiatives forward. Before you know it, more leaders will be on board.

3. Provide the Right Monetary Resources to Invest in DEI

Have you adjusted your budget to factor in DEI needs? Your goal of empowering managers will be hard to reach without the right financial investment.

For instance, let’s talk about hiring diverse employees. Prior to beginning your DEI journey, you might have spent time going to career fairs at the private schools your company executives attended.

If you are truly invested in diversity and inclusion, you have to widen your recruiting methods.

Are you providing the right monetary resources to make changes that will improve diversity at your organization?

Here are some ideas you might want to consider:

  • Moving away from unpaid internships.
  • Widening recruitment methods.
  • Paying employee resource group leaders.
  • Offering remote or hybrid work opportunities.
  • Adding diverse holidays to the company holiday calendar.

4. Set SMART Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Goals

Next, you’ll want to set SMART goals.

Above all, we know that managers respond to well-defined goals. As an organization leader, it’s time to put some of your thoughts into an actionable plan that empowers managers.

What are SMART goals, exactly? SMART goals stand for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-Bound

Each goal you set needs to follow this framework to be helpful to your team.

Here is an example of a DEI-related SMART goal:

Achieve a 20% increase in the diversity of our applicant pool in one year.

So, does this meet the SMART goal criteria?

  • Specific: This goal asks us to increase the diversity of our applicant pool. It could be clearer on what type of diversity the company is looking for, but it’s pretty specific.
  • Measurable: At the end of a year, we should be able to measure the diversity of our applicant pool against last year’s number.
  • Attainable: Goal attainability can be hard to determine. This goal should be attainable if an organization looked at their numbers and put proper resources behind this goal.
  • Relevant: If you are interested in improving diversity, this is relevant.
  • Time-Bound: We have one year to make this goal a reality, so it’s time-bound.

Other SMART DEI Goals:

Now that we know what a SMART goal looks like, let’s walk through some other potential SMART DEI goals.

  • Create 3 employee resource groups for underrepresented populations in our organization by the end of the quarter.
  • Improve the score of question #4 in our annual inclusion survey by 10% next year.
  • Try out 3 new recruiting methods during our next seasonal hiring push and compare results against our typical methods.
  • Improve our careers page to feature voices from five different underrepresented groups in the next three months.

5. Feature a DEI Speaker at Your Next Managers’ Retreat

Sometimes empowering managers is as simple as getting an amazing speaker to connect with your team.

You can do a quick search on LinkedIn to find a wide array of DEI speakers and educators. During your next managers’ retreat, host a speaker who can connect with your team.

After the DEI leader speaks with your managers, try to incorporate some of the techniques they shared. For example, you could encourage your managers to take notes and implement at least one suggestion per department.

6. Use the Right Incentives

Who doesn’t love a good incentive for moving the needle forward on a project? Certainly, it would be ideal if company leaders could make these decisions on their own. You might not find this to be the case, though.

Departmental and company-wide incentives could help you take your DEI initiatives to the next level.

For example, you could award extra vacation days to the department that embraces DEI most successfully (create some SMART goals around this.) You could also provide a team bonding event to the department with the biggest positive change in DEI survey results (announce this after you’ve collected results.)

7. Show That Your Current Focus on DEI Means Something to You

Lastly, we have to talk about focus.

Are you known to bounce around from idea to idea? Can employees trust you when you put your focus on something?

If not, they may be struggling to believe your newfound focus on DEI.

Don’t give up. Focus on proving your dedication. You need to focus on DEI even when you think no one is watching or listening.

For instance, you can start moving forward with goals as a company executive. Get some momentum going and report on your work. Hopefully, other company leaders will join you as they see how much the work means to you.

Conclusion: Empower Managers With the Right Resources

So, you are ready to start empowering managers! Diversity and inclusion work isn’t easy, but we know that you have the tools to do the job well. To sum up today’s blog, put in the work. Company managers will soon follow suit if they see you do it first.

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

The benefits of launching a vendor diversity program

August is Black Business Month. As we celebrate this occasion and consider Black businesses that we can frequent, it might be time to revamp (or start) your vendor diversity program. Organizations need to look at the vendors they support to ensure that money earned gives back to businesses that need it most. So, how can we make that happen at work?

What Is Vendor Diversity?

As organizations grow, investing in up-and-coming startups and businesses is key.

Vendor diversity programs give companies a framework to follow when they decide who to support. Vendor diversity doesn’t force employees to use certain vendors. Instead, companies give guidance on how to diversify supply chains. By providing foundational information and resources, organizations can spend their money in more diverse places.

Instead of seeing championing vendor diversity as something you have to do, company leaders should see it as something they get to do.

Why Is Vendor Diversity Important?

Most large businesses wouldn’t be where they are today if open-minded companies or individuals hadn’t taken a chance on them during the early days. We can’t lose sight of the value of shopping and investing small.

We live in a world where Google gives us the top result, and that’s usually all the research we need to do.

Vendor diversity initiatives encourage us to think deeper, do more research, and potentially find an organization in our community or led by people from underrepresented backgrounds to support.

The Benefits of a Vendor Diversity Program

First, let’s cover some of the benefits of a vendor diversity program. These benefits can help you sell the goal of starting this program at your company.

Diverse Vendors Can Help You Find Solutions You Might Never Have Considered

Organizations run by people from underrepresented backgrounds typically start because their leaders saw a gap in the market that wasn’t satisfied by the big players.

Diverse teams are proven to boost innovation and financial results. Imagine what you could accomplish by investing in groups that understand that diversity is the building block of their organization.

If you are looking for creative solutions to problems you’ve been having, it’s best to work with a diverse group of vendors. Small companies have less red tape, so they can pivot and create solutions quicker than tried and true companies with hundreds of employees.

There are downsides to working with a small team, like lack of people power or money. On the other hand, these organizations are much more open to customer feedback and input. With your help, these companies can afford to make investments in what matters to customers.

Vendor Diversity Creates Awesome PR Opportunities

Vendor diversity creates some stellar opportunities to get your brand seen by more people. You are coming onboard when the company is small. These opportunities will only grow as their organization does.

Let’s face it, we all want to put our name next to giants in the industry. Companies like Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and Google all have public supplier diversity or inclusion policies. By leaning into your supplier inclusion policy as a company, you can market your business as one that values competition and supports small companies.

Another PR opportunity you might have with small businesses is the opportunity to do case studies or get your logo featured on vendor websites. As their company grows, these early case studies can make all the difference to their company and yours. Your organization might even become the face of your vendor’s product or service.

Supply Chain Diversity Drives Competition in the Industry

We’ve become homogenous in the business world. Companies are constantly getting bought, sold, and dissolved. New industry players shake things up and provide some competition to older products on the market.

Your vendor might eventually join a bigger company, but not before disrupting the industry a bit. New industry players with the right funding can make other companies more willing to innovate or change their businesses practices.

Once you are done working with a newer vendor on the scene, you might be shocked at how the industry has changed. Companies need competition to drive them to innovate.

How to Encourage Employees to Diversify Vendors

So now that you know the benefits of vendor diversity, how do you make it a reality at your organization? Of course, understanding the perks and making it happen are two different things. Here are some basic principles that will make your program successful:

Make It Easy

Google is easy.

Typing “best t-shirt vendor” into Google takes a few seconds, and you get pages of results. The first page is full of ads (vendors who can obviously afford to put money into advertising.) After that, the search results highlight organizations that have put a lot of energy into ranking highly for this keyword.

You can quickly go to Google and get all the results you’ll ever need for any vendor you will ever want. A quick Google search doesn’t help you find the most diverse vendors, though. Google is based on SEO (search engine optimization.) The companies you are trying to find with a vendor diversity program may not understand this process.

So, how do you make it easier for employees? Create a database. You can use an internal tool like Google Sheets to start creating a shared database the entire company can use. As you find diverse vendors, add them to the database. You can even create a section for employees to review vendors they know and love.

Discuss the Benefits

Next, you’ll want to go over the benefits of prioritizing vendor diversity. Talk through the powerful innovation, PR, and competition benefits companies can realize when they invest in small organizations.

Think back to when your organization was starting. How did your company benefit from investments? How did your customers benefit from working with you? You probably have a story or two that you can share with anyone skeptical about vendor diversity.

Provide Incentives

Last but not least, you’ll want to provide incentives. Encourage people to put more thought into vendor diversity. Consider providing a bonus or award to the departments that focus most on vendor diversity. Everyone likes recognition for the work they put in.

If you notice any person putting a lot of effort into vendor diversity, consider giving them a shout-out in the next company meeting. Ask employees who do a good job at diversifying vendors to speak about their experience with company leaders.

Conclusion: Vendor Diversity Is Within Reach

Companies that care about vendor diversity can seek out companies that fit the criteria they are looking for. With a little patience and the right framework, you’ll find all the vendors you need to diversify your company’s supply chain. Vendor diversity might take a bit more work than using Google, but you won’t regret the time you take to look for the right businesses.

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Employee Engagement

10 employee engagement programs that drive real impact

As organizations grow, we have to find ways to optimize our workforce and improve engagement. Implementing different employee engagement programs is a wonderful way to reconnect with employees. Which programs are right for your organization? Today, we are going to share some ideas that might fit the bill.

1) Examine Your Company’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

It’s easy for diversity and inclusion to never go beyond a statement or mantra. Taking action on diversity and moving your statements forward isn’t as challenging as it seems.

For example, if you want to do more with inclusion, start by creating goals based on your statements.

Once you’ve established goals, put some time on your calendar to revisit your KPIs every quarter. What’s going right? How can you improve or speed up your progress? What does your team think about the diversity-focused employee engagement programs you’ve put into place?

Because younger generations value diversity at work, examining your company’s progress in this area is crucial.

2) Give Employees Space to Innovate on Your Product(s)

Are you looking to encourage innovation and improvements on your organization’s products? You might want to host an innovation day at your company.

For example, take a look at this quick video that Arizona State University put together to announce one of their innovation days:

You might be wondering how to make this employee engagement program a reality at your company. Here are some steps you can follow:

  1. Identify the day you want to host your innovation event and what kind of innovations you want to see (e.g. product innovations vs. company innovations.)
  2. Put parameters around what you want to come out of the day. For example, do you want a solution ready to launch or just the thought work around the solution?
  3. Figure out who needs to be in each employee working group. For instance, you might want to split the company into groups of 10 and ensure that at least one software engineer is in each room.
  4. Give people advance notice, so they have time to come up with some interesting ideas to share with their group.
  5. Host the event (and make it an annual activity if it’s successful.)

3) Encourage Employees to Take a Look at Their Work/Life Balance

Many of your people are probably struggling with maintaining a healthy work/life balance, especially if they work from home.

Taking a look at work/life balance isn’t an employee engagement program by itself. We must create more definition around this goal to make sure our employees can maintain this balance.

You might buy your employees a journal and encourage them to write about work/life balance and discuss their findings with their managers.

Keeping up with work/life balance will ensure that employees take needed breaks and separate their careers from life when working remotely.

4) Host an Employee Care Package Exchange

Everyone loves a fun care package.

Many services send care packages, but that’s not always fun. As an employee engagement program option, you can pair employees together and give everyone $50-$75 to send a care package.

Care package programs can be exciting, especially if you have employees in different parts of the world. Encourage employees to find unique products to add to each package.

You can partner employees up several times a year to create a truly unique engagement program.

5) Make Sure Your Time Off Program Serves Your Staff

When is the last time you took a look at your time off program?

It’s easy to let these programs run themselves in the background, but you have to keep them top of mind.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Are employees taking an adequate amount of time off?
  • Can I make these policies clearer? (For example, adding mandatory minimums to unlimited vacation policies.)
  • Are leaders modeling time off best practices?

Creating a time-off policy is only half the battle. Next, employees and leaders need to follow what you’ve described.

6) Change Your Community by Investing in Volunteerism

Volunteering can be a great way to engage employees.

Many community organizations could use your company’s support.

Give your employees time off to volunteer in the local community. Let community organizations join your company’s meetings to keep your employees updated on what they do. These small activities can lead to more engaged employees who are active in the community.

7) Build Exciting Employee Resource Groups

Employee resource groups, or ERGs, are very beneficial at work. ERGs bring together like-minded employees and help them find a group of friends at work.

If your employees aren’t finding friends easily, consider creating resource groups to bring employees together. Friendships built in these groups flourish because everyone has at least one thing in common.

8) Share the Love by Giving Public Praise

When people feel like they are doing a good job at work, engagement flourishes.

If your company hasn’t created a praise program, now is the time to think about it.

Consider how you will praise employees privately and publicly (if they enjoy receiving public feedback.)

You also want to consider how you give constructive criticism to employees. If workers know what to improve upon, they can feel like they are advancing at work.

9) Create a Stellar Employee Mentorship Program

Mentorship is an essential part of work life. It can be difficult to advance without the help of someone more senior in their career.

If you haven’t started a mentorship program at work yet, gather managers and establish a cross-departmental mentorship program.

Encourage employees to sign up for the mentorship program with a form you send to every team member. By investing in this program:

  • Mentors will get to work with people outside of their department.
  • Mentees will get someone to lean on besides their direct manager.

10) Ensure Every Employee Has Talked With Their Manager About Career Progression

Last but not least, make sure that employees are talking about career progression frequently. Managers should be chatting with employees about career progression at least once per quarter.

Did you know that 82% of employees would quit a job due to a lack of career progression?

If you haven’t already, consider creating career progression plans with all of your employees. After you create them, launch a program that encourages managers and staff to revisit their plans regularly.

Key Employee Engagement Program Takeaways

You can’t improve employee engagement overnight. But, programs like the ones we shared today can help you and your business get closer to the employee experience you want to build for your organization.

Do you need a home base for your employee engagement programs? Consider Workrowd! At Workrowd, we help you create employee communities that your staff will love to belong to. If you want to learn more about what we offer and if we are right for your company, email us at hello@workrowd.com.

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

3 reasons to prioritize equity in your office reopenings

For many organizations, increased vaccine adoption means that returning to the office is on the horizon. If your organization is thinking about going back to some form of office life, it’s important to consider equity in your decision. Office reopenings shouldn’t be the reason employees consider resigning or searching for other work.

As an organization leader, now is the time to consider what employees are facing to make the right decision for your team members.

Office Reopening Concerns

Office reopenings have employees thinking about The Great Resignation and moving on from their current employment. What are some of the major concerns people have when it comes to getting back to the office? Here are some starters:

Working From Home Is Nice

Let’s face it: being able to work from home has some nice perks. Many people have gotten used to working at home in their own offices, and giving up that freedom isn’t easy for some employees.

Working from home allows employees to avoid things like water cooler chat, which will be a part of going back to work. After so long, there are many small things that could give employees anxiety about returning to the office.

COVID Fears

Contrary to popular belief, we are still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. As the Delta variant has caused another surge in cases while vaccination rates are suffering in many places, it’s become increasingly clear that returning to the office won’t be as easy as we’d hoped.

While you may be keen to get back to the office, empathy for employees is essential during this time.

As an organization leader, you have to be aware of what Covid looks like in your city. Some states and countries have been harder hit than others. Take time to consider how you can ease fears and bring people back to the office with those feelings in mind.

The Future of Work Is Here

Another big concern is that organizations are trying to return to normal without thinking through the workplace they want to have. The future of work is here, and employees have a precise idea of what they will and won’t put up with.

As an organization leader, you may consider other work arrangements like a hybrid or permanent remote work setup. You’ll also want to consider what kind of bonding is required to do a job well. For instance, you might want to move to asynchronous communication for most of your time.

Overall, employees are calling on companies to be intentional about this return to the office.

What Role Does Equity Play At Work?

As organizations grow, equity becomes essential. Many organizations stop at equality, but that doesn’t really address the whole picture.

Image Attribution: Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire

This image from the Interaction Institute for Social Change helps give more color to the term equity. Equity isn’t about giving the same resources to everyone. Instead, organizations that value equity realize that different groups need different resources to be on a level playing field.

Why You Should Prioritize Equity in Your Office Reopenings

As you are thinking through your office reopenings, you must consider the role of equity in how you choose to show up for your employees.

Office Reopenings Can Put Undue Stress on Employees

The current pandemic has hit employees differently.

When we think about the diversity of people who are employed, some of those individuals are bound to be dealing with things we can’t even begin to comprehend.

For example, you might have employees with weakened immune systems, social anxiety, and other (sometimes) invisible conditions on your roster.

According to the American Psychological Association, Americans aren’t sure about what life will look like once we return to the office. In fact, 49% said that adjusting back to in-person life made them uneasy.

Remote Work Can Improve Workplace Diversity

While remote work can cause some issues with face-to-face communication, there are many positives to working from home.

Remote work allowed some to go to work when they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.

Based on the number of employees who have quit in the last few months, it’s clear that flexibility is required and other voices need to be heard when deciding to open up the office.

COVID Has Put a Lot of Things Outside of Our Control

Let’s be clear: many of your employees are struggling.

Covid has created a global pandemic that has taken more than a year of our lives (and there’s no sign that it’s stopping now.)

Vulnerable communities like women (especially women with children), people of color, and people with disabilities have been hard hit by the pandemic.

With so much out of our control, your staff wants to control what they can. Give them more equity in the decisions you are making around returning to work post-COVID.

What Companies Need to Consider With Office Reopenings

There are so many things employers should think about when it comes to getting back in the office. Here are just a few of them:

  • Do you have the resources to come back safely?
  • Are your office policies written and agreed upon by your employees?
  • Do you have any plans in case you need to close the office down again?
  • Do you need to go back to a fully in-office team? Can you mix it up and provide room for a hybrid workforce?
  • What is giving you the impression that you need to return to the office now? Are you jumping to conclusions?

It’s important to evaluate the reasons why we are doing what we are doing. Your staff are your people. It’s your job to take care of them and ensure their best interests are served when returning to the office.

Conclusion: Creating an Equitable Workforce When Reopening Offices

Getting back to the office is going to require a lot of work from human resources professionals. It’s challenging, because dealing with pandemic policies is probably not what any HR leader wants to do. Hopefully this article gives you some food for thought as you are thinking about reopening the office.

Equity starts by building bridges and encouraging open conversation. Employee communities can be the perfect place to have those conversations. Check out Workrowd and email us at hello@workrowd.com to see if we’d be right for your organization.

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Company Culture

Defining company culture must be a daily activity – here’s why

Defining company culture in an organization isn’t an easy task. It can be challenging to invest energy into a topic that feels grandiose or theoretical. It’s crucially important that you do so, though; company culture plays a larger role than you might think.

What Role Does Company Culture Play At Work?

Company culture is more than just a theoretical list of values or statements. Your company is creating a culture, even if you are not actively focused on it. Culture is about:

  • The feeling an employee has when working for your organization.
  • What behavior is accepted by employees and managers at work.
  • How conflict or disagreements are handled.

Culture touches so many aspects of life at your organization. Therefore, we must take a more active approach to defining our company’s culture.

5 Reasons to Invest in Company Culture Every Day

Investing in company culture every day might feel like a massive undertaking. So, why do we need to connect on our culture, values, and vision so often? Here are some of the reasons why:

1. It’s Easy to Lose Sight Of the Company Culture You’re Trying to Build

You’ve probably heard of the phrase “out of sight, out of mind.” Company culture is a hard concept for some people to grasp. It only becomes more challenging if you aren’t spending an adequate amount of time defining and perfecting your organization’s culture.

A recent company culture story that made headlines was about the merger of Kraft and Heinz and what it did for the company culture of both organizations. Unfortunately, as companies grow, merge, and get acquired, it’s so easy to lose sight of the company culture you’re trying to build.

In the article about Kraft Heinz, a Kraft employee talked about life pre-merger. Kraft was treating its employees well with a lot of opportunities for advancement. As Kraft was acquired, the culture it had built as an individual organization was slowly eroded.

If you are not careful, it’s easy for something similar to happen to your team.

2. Culture Consistency Builds Brand and Company Loyalty

There is a brain hack called spaced repetition that dramatically improves the way your brain stores information. It works by going over the same information in a spaced, but repetitive fashion. Most people choose an hour every day to go over flashcards if they want to make the biggest impact with this method.

As an organization, you have to spend more time than once per year going over your organization’s core values and culture. Defining company culture should be a daily activity so that employees begin to understand the culture and what appropriate behavior looks like.

Put another way, you can’t act like culture doesn’t matter 300+ days out of the year. Employees need consistency to model great workplace behavior.

As you showcase your company’s culture, employees begin to understand that it’s more than just lip service on your organization’s career site. Culture becomes tangible, and it makes employees want to improve their loyalty to your organization.

As your customers become aware of your culture, you can draw new and existing customers to your brand.

3. Understanding Company Culture Helps You Make Better Decisions

Company culture isn’t just for employees. Managers and company leaders also need to understand the culture you are trying to build. Decision-making takes up a ton of mental energy for leaders who can spend hours of their time each week making decisions. When you have a clear culture, decision-making becomes effortless.

You would be surprised at the number of employers who struggle with decision-making:

Only 20 percent of respondents say their organizations excel at decision making.

McKinsey & Company

Imagine how much better leaders would be at making decisions if they had clarity about the company’s culture, mission, vision, and values. In a world where clear decision-making is critical, we need leaders who understand our organization and can step up to the plate.

4. Culture Issues Are Easier to Fix When Detected Early

Cultural misalignment at work can cause a wide array of issues for employees. If one employee gets out of alignment, they have the ability to cause employee dissatisfaction, turnover, and a negative public image for your organization.

If you let cultural issues go undetected, you are letting employees that go against your culture connect with employees and customers.

On the other hand, maybe you are creating a toxic company culture. If you go months without addressing culture, you could be perpetuating this negative experience for a long time. Addressing culture often helps you spot these issues before they get out of hand.

5. Company Culture Defines Your Organization’s Very Existence

Company culture isn’t a pie in the sky thought experiment. It’s the makeup of your entire organization’s existence. Culture isn’t always easy to spot, but it’s being created every day.

Regular culture maintenance is a necessary part of organizational growth.

We care for our culture because we care for our people.

Daily Organizational Culture Tweaks

Now that you know why you should define company culture daily, let’s walk through a few activities to help you make this a reality.

  • Highlight employees contributing to your company’s culture every morning inside your company’s communities.
  • Check-in with employees daily to let them know you are thinking of them and see if they have any issues.
  • Play a short get-to-know-you game during every daily standup meeting you have.
  • Give your employees flexibility in how they choose to work every day.
  • Encourage everyone to take daily breaks or naps to improve focus and get off the computer for a while.

You may be struggling with the thought of defining company culture every day, but this doesn’t have to be difficult. Start by defining the culture you are trying to create at work. Then, based on that, come up with a few activities you can do daily, weekly, and monthly to keep that culture top of mind for your employees.

Defining Company Culture Should Happen All the Time

Company culture isn’t something you define once and then put on a shelf. Leaders need to find ways to connect with employees. We have to address culture daily.

Without this extra step, it’s easy for employees or leaders to go back to their old ways. If you want employees to follow your culture, you have to keep it top of mind.

Are you looking for a way to improve company culture at your organization? Read our article about how employee communities drive positive company culture. If you are ready to invest in employee communities, reach out to us at hello@workrowd.com to see if our tool can serve your organization’s needs.

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Company Culture

7 strategies for building an inclusive culture in 2021

Creating an inclusive culture continues to be important, especially for employees who belong to the millennial and Gen Z generations. It’s becoming increasingly clear that inclusivity has a positive effect on an organization’s bottom line, but what strategies can organizations use to take diversity to the next level? Today, we are discussing the inclusive culture strategies your organization can use to improve in 2021 (and beyond.)

What Does It Mean to Build an Inclusive Culture?

Having an inclusive culture is about more than hiring diverse employees. Inclusivity goes beyond the mere presence of minority groups.

Inclusive cultures celebrate and empower minority workers with well-paying jobs, fair and equal promotion opportunities, and the feeling that they belong at the organization.

Culture matters. Company leaders can’t expect to retain underrepresented hires without deeply committing to their culture and how they treat diverse groups.

7 Inclusive Culture Strategies Your Company Can Utilize

Going beyond hiring diverse employees takes time and energy. It’s not an overnight success, especially for organizations with a small number of minority employees at the outset. Accordingly, here are seven strategies you can start with to improve the culture at your organization.

1. Go Beyond Black/White Thinking

First, we have to move past black and white thinking when it comes to diversity and inclusion at work. Many organizations depend too heavily on having one single diverse population represented. It’s important to go beyond black/white thinking or male/female thinking.

Hiring a lot of black employees or several women doesn’t necessarily make your organization diverse or inclusive.

Inclusivity is more than black/white. There are other ways to create an inclusive workplace for different groups of people. For instance, diversity exists across:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Religion
  • Sexual Orientation
  • Educational Attainment

Consider these different dimensions of diversity as you are looking at candidates and interviewing. Keep all of your organization’s types of diversity in mind as you are planning holidays, creating social media content, and developing employee resource groups.

2. Celebrate Employee Differences

You might hire employees from diverse backgrounds, but are those employees able to be themselves? Do they spend more time assimilating than bringing their unique experiences to the table?

You’d be surprised how many people don’t feel comfortable being themselves at work. Speaker and writer Jodi-Ann Burey recently gave a fantastic TED Talk about the myth of bringing your full, authentic self to work that summarizes many of the issues diverse groups face around opening up at work.

Your employees might celebrate different holidays, wear different clothing to work, or choose to bring someone you wouldn’t expect to the company family day.

Are you able to accept and celebrate all the different ways your employees might choose to show up at work? Creating an inclusive culture allows you to celebrate and learn from your employees’ different cultural and personal beliefs.

3. Ensure Buy-In From All Directions

Typically, organizations consider buy-in from leaders and managers, but top-down buy-in won’t cut it when it comes to inclusivity.

Employees interact with a wide array of people every single day. For example, customers, colleagues, managers, and even investors might interact with your employees.

If managers are the only people who have expressed buy-in, you might open diverse employees up to many micro and macro-aggressions at work.

4. Define & Check-In on Goals, Not Quotas

For many organizations wanting to invest in inclusion, their first thought is to set quotas for the hiring process. For example, they may choose to set a quota for the number of minority candidates who turn in resumes or the number of interviews held.

Quotas without the work of actually hiring more diverse candidates are just a waste of the candidate’s time and your own. Candidates want to feel like they have a shot at joining your organization, not like a quota checkbox.

Get specific about what a diverse and inclusive organization would look like. Create SMART goals around diversifying your organization and creating an inclusive culture at work. Go beyond quota filling to create the best company culture.

5. Focus on Creating Training Moments Year-Round

Are you spending your time creating one diversity and inclusion training per year? While this is a great gesture and start to improving D&I at your organization, it’s easy for your initiatives to get swept under the rug if you are only addressing the situation once per year.

Instead, you can create smaller monthly or quarterly trainings for employees to keep your diversity work top of mind. Consider hosting town halls about diversity at work, sharing details about diverse holidays, and celebrating heritage/recognition months as they come up.

Connecting with employees about diversity topics throughout the year will make everyone more educated on related topics.

6. Learn From Other Organizations Who Value Diversity & Inclusion (D&I)

One of the best parts about HR work is that you can learn from others. Other human resources professionals are dealing with (or have dealt with) all the issues you are currently facing at work. You can lean on other HR professionals to learn from their mistakes and successes.

By connecting with others, you can implement their strategies to create a more inclusive culture at your organization.

One way you can do this is by joining a network like the Global ERG Network. This cross-company community is a fantastic opportunity for employee ERG leaders to access best practice templates and toolkits, monthly learning events, and 24/7 networking and knowledge sharing with peers.

7. Think About the Outward Work

Many organizations start claiming their inclusion success too early, but never claiming it at all isn’t the answer either.

Potential candidates need to see the work that you are doing to improve diversity and inclusion at your organization.

Here are some ways to do inclusion work outwardly:

  • Plan social media campaigns about diverse holidays.
  • Spotlight diverse employees in brochures and company publications.
  • Feature diverse faces in your company’s marketing material.
  • Donate to and partner with diverse organizations.
  • Publicly support causes and political legislation that uplift diverse groups.

Creating an Inclusive Culture Takes Time

You won’t be able to transform your culture overnight. There are no quick fixes when it comes to inclusivity. By following these steps, you will slowly win over your organization and make inclusivity the standard.

If you are looking to create a more inclusive culture through employee networks, we’re the perfect partner. Email us at hello@workrowd.com to see if we’re the right fit for your organization.

Categories
Company Culture

5 ways to help your office culture rebound after the pandemic

Employees have gone through a lot in the last year. As companies begin to get back into the office, you might have a culture problem. Transitions back to life as usual can’t happen overnight. We must give our employees ample time to get used to the commute, water cooler conversation, and dressing up for the office again. If your employees are struggling with office life, there are several things you can do to improve your office culture. 

What Impact Did The Pandemic Have on Office Culture?

So, what impact did the pandemic have on office culture?

When we think about traditional workplace culture, a lot of our memories start with the office. From general water cooler conversations to lunch with our colleagues, we spent a lot of time in the office pre-pandemic.

In early 2020, many companies shifted their work completely. Companies pivoted to working from home, and more silos formed as we went to virtual communication like Slack and Zoom meetings.

Companies had to learn to restructure communication and benefits that were tied to the office (e.g. free lunches.) The pandemic truly changed the way that we worked. Some companies plan to stay remote forever.

With all the rapid changes we had to make, it’s no wonder the pandemic impacted office culture.

5 Ways to Help Your Office Culture Rebound After the Pandemic

It’s easy to understand why the pandemic has changed office culture in the last year. Knowing this, how do we deal with the fallout of the pandemic when it comes to office culture? Well, you can start with these five activities:

Set Proper Expectations About Office Culture as Employees Return to Work

Before anyone steps foot back in the office, you have to start by setting proper expectations about what office life will look like as employees return to work.

Set expectations about:

  • Mask guidelines
  • Social distancing protocols
  • Cleaning frequency
  • Testing
  • Office gatherings and events

Write all of these policies down and put them in a place where every employee can see them. As employees go back to the office, ask them to acknowledge your office guidelines before returning to work.

Ease Back Into Office Life

Many employees have been working from home for more than a year. Getting back into the grind of daily office life isn’t going to be easy for people.

In fact, some people are choosing to quit their job instead of going back to work. The thought of a mass exodus of employees is pretty scary, especially because filling empty positions is so difficult right now.

Don’t ask employees to flip the switch automatically. Come up with a plan that slowly gets people back in the office.

For example, you might choose to create a hybrid work plan where employees can choose to come in the number of days they want. Many employers have even decided to utilize a desk sharing model where employees reserve a desk if they are in the office.

We have to understand how badly we need employees in a physical office. Is it worth the commute and upset employees to require their physical presence? Or is there another option where we give employees the ability to work from an office if it works for them (e.g. downsizing the office or using coworking spaces)?

Consider Ways to Bring Back Pre-Pandemic Traditions Safely

What did the office look like pre-pandemic? Did you offer free lunch or workout Wednesdays? For many employees, the best part of office life was the perks they got for being there.

Are you bringing employees back to the office without thinking about the benefits of returning? If so, it’s time to plan this part of office life.

To make things safer, you’ll likely need to change some aspects of those pre-pandemic traditions. For example, lunches might need to be individually packaged, and workout Wednesdays will need to be socially distanced.

Going back to the office after the pandemic doesn’t mean you need to start from scratch on office traditions. Ease back into holding these traditions regularly to rebound office culture quickly.

Set Up Employees With Weekly Office Buddies

If your company is like most with turnover and hiring new employees, it’s likely that many team members haven’t had the chance to get to know one another.

If you are looking for a way to rebound office culture, start small by assigning weekly office buddies. Encourage office buddies to connect over a meal or a joint project one day during the week. You can even set weekly ice breakers to get the conversation flowing.

Here are some ice breaker questions to get you started:

  • What was the last thing that made you smile/laugh/feel excited?
  • Where do you want to be in life or your career five years from now?
  • What is your favorite thing to do outside of work? How did you get started with that hobby?
  • What’s the next destination on your travel bucket list? Why do you want to go there?
  • If you could change one thing about your favorite book/movie/television show, what would it be and why?
  • What is your favorite place in the city? How did you find out about the place?
  • If you could create a super job featuring all of your favorite work activities, what would that job be?

Ask For and Utilize Employee Feedback

Last but not least, one of the best ways to rebound office culture is to talk to your staff and get their opinion. Gathering and utilizing employee feedback is one of the best ways to understand what your team needs from you.

Create a confidential survey using a tool like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey. Ask all your burning office culture questions and request that employees fill out the survey.

After receiving all your responses, synthesize the information for employees and tell them what you will do about it. Employees can get tired of surveys quickly, especially if they don’t feel that managers are hearing them. Ensure that you close the feedback loop and make any necessary adjustments.

Conclusion

Getting back into the office is going to be challenging for even the most seasoned employees. As an organization leader, it’s your duty to guide employees to speak up for what they need and advocate for your organization at the same time. It’s a tricky balancing act, but it can be done when you make sure to keep active listening top of mind.

If you are looking for more information on hybrid workforces, check out our free hybrid workforce engagement guide. Reach out to us at hello@workrowd.com to see if building employee communities with Workrowd is the best way to engage your employees in and out of the office.