Category: Employee Engagement

Trust in the workplace doesn’t always come easy. A third of people don’t trust their employer. Ouch.

The higher up someone is on the corporate ladder, the more likely they are to trust their organization. I’m going to assume that’s because the higher up someone is, the closer they are to decision making. And the sooner they find out what’s going on. Which means they feel more control in their roles, too.

But there’s no reason every employee in an organization shouldn’t feel trust in the workplace. 

Highly-trusted organizations have 50% higher employee productivity. Their employees take 13% fewer sick days and have 106% more energy at work. 

And if that wasn’t enough, companies with higher trust levels outperform those with lower trust levels by 186%.

Those are some pretty impressive numbers.

So what can you do to build trust in the workplace and boost engagement?

Check your culture

What’s your company culture really like? How open are your leaders with your employees? 28% of employees would extend their tenure if people at every level were transparent.

28% of employees is a huge number when you take into account time and cost to hire, onboarding, etc. Retaining those employees could make a significant difference to your profit margins. That’s even before you factor in the difference in productivity that can come from trust in the workplace.

So it’s time to take an honest look at your culture (perhaps through a survey, which we’ll discuss more below).

What do your employees think? Can they be honest? Do they trust leaders to be honest? Do they know what direction the business is heading in?

Simple questions—even answered in multiple-choice format—can lead to big breakthroughs and epiphanies on how to boost trust in the workplace.

Be transparent

Sometimes information should be kept on a need-to-know basis. But if you keep employees entirely in the dark, it can lead to organizational anxiety and a lack of trust in the workplace.

The more you share what’s happening, and you’re honest when you don’t know what’s going on yet, the more likely employees are to trust senior leaders and HR teams to be honest with them when the going gets tough.

Keep your promises

A third of employees would stay longer if a company’s leaders kept their promises. Broken promises can make a huge dent in employee morale, and therefore productivity.

If you have to break a promise, you need to explain why. Then, find a way to make it up to them.

It’s not an easy thing to come back from, so if you can’t promise something, make sure not to promise. Sometimes it’s better to say that you hope something will happen but you can’t make any promises, than to make promises and renege on them.

Apologize if things go wrong

Part of developing trust is accepting that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes. That starts with everyone being able to apologize when things go wrong. Whether that’s for making a mistake, not replying to an email, or even being in a bad mood.

You don’t need to apologize for every little thing like many of us do. Occasionally saying sorry for a mistake though, shows that you’re human and that it’s okay that your team members are, too.

And because of that human connection, you’re more likely to develop trust in the workplace.

Connect employees

When employees are connected with each other, they’ll naturally find out more about what’s going on. They’ll also feel more comfortable being themselves. Both of which are key to building trust in the workplace.

Employee groups are essential tools that enable employees to connect with their colleagues who have shared interests, backgrounds, or goals. This not only fosters a greater sense of belonging and connection at work, but because they feel like more of a member of the team, they’re more likely to trust their colleagues and the organization, too.

Make information easy to find

If information takes forever to find, it can suggest that the business has something to hide.

Or worse, it’s disorganized and no one actually knows what’s going on and when.

Which naturally slows everyone down because they can’t find what they need.

When everything is easy for employees to find, it saves them time. It also puts their minds at ease, reducing anxiety and stress.

Workrowd can help you share the latest information your employees need in one central location. They’ll know exactly where to check for updates, making their lives and jobs easier.

Ask for feedback

Hearing what employees have to say won’t always be easy. But it’s a vital way for companies to grow and develop trust in the workplace.

Part of fostering a sense of trust is ensuring people’s voices are heard. Employee surveys are an easy way to make that happen.

Workrowd can help you send automated feedback requests to employees based on specific triggers. That way you can focus your time on making a difference.

Act on feedback

Feedback surveys don’t mean anything if you don’t do anything with the results. And sadly, most organizations don’t. They see collecting employee feedback as a box-checking exercise.

But the real way to build trust in the workplace is to do the work to show your employees that they matter.

Listen to their feedback and address their concerns, whether that’s through an all-hands meeting where they can ask questions; by letting go of people creating a toxic workplace; changing organizational structures; or something else.

Some changes will be quick to enact, others will take much longer. But it’s these changes that hold the real power and will do the most to build trust in the workplace.

Conclusion 

Trust in the workplace is vital to your employee engagement and retention efforts. Many of the ways to build it require simple changes, like communicating openly with everyone.

If you’d like help boosting trust in the workplace in your organization, Workrowd’s all-in-one suite of tools can help. You get a knowledge hub to keep everyone informed, and a community hub to keep everyone connected. Plus, automated surveys and analytics ensure you always know what’s working and what’s not so you can build a culture your whole team loves.

Contact us today to learn more and see how Workrowd can help you reach and exceed your goals.

While effectively measuring employee engagement at your organization can be a challenge, it’s undeniably important. Low engagement costs the global economy $7.8 trillion every year.

Yet, with so many businesses turning their backs on DEI initiatives—which are proven to boost engagement—is employee engagement really still a priority?

Prior to the pandemic, employee engagement and well-being had been rising globally for almost a decade. Now, they’ve stagnated.

Just a fifth of employees are engaged at work, and only a third are thriving in their overall well-being.

Work now feels pointless to many and they don’t feel hopeful for their futures. I mean, can you blame them? Given the current state of the world from every direction?

Businesses need to be mindful of the impact engagement can have on their bottom lines, and how both company culture and external factors can impact employee engagement and productivity.

Failing to consider these factors means risking a decrease in employee engagement, innovation, productivity, and profit.

Which is risky, when you consider that engaged employees lead to a:

• 10% jump in customer satisfaction rates
• 17% productivity bump
• 20% sales increase
• 21% profitability boost
• 31% reduction in absenteeism

To be able to improve your employee engagement rates you need to measure them, though. How do you do that?

Here are our tips for measuring employee engagement:

Automate feedback

Automation is a key part of making your, and your employees’, lives easier.

When it comes to measuring employee engagement, if you automate it, there’s no forgetting to send that feedback survey or not having enough time to do so. The right tool can do it all for you. So you can collect more data in less time.

Want to automate your employee feedback surveys? Check out Workrowd. We can help you send automated, bite-sized surveys so that it’s easier for you and your employees to discuss what’s happening in your business in real time. And did we mention we can automatically analyze the results, too?

Make feedback opportunities bite-sized

The more effort you make something for someone—especially a busy employee—the less likely they are to do it.

Think about those feedback surveys you get from a coffee shop or doctor’s office that say they’ll just take ten minutes for you to complete. How often do you actually want to fill them in? And how often do they offer some sort of reward/prize to incentivize you to do it?

Yeah, that’s so that you focus on the reward not on the effort you’ve got to put in to fill it out.

Sure, one-time, in-depth answers can be useful. But if you collect data regularly, you’ll get more actionable information because you can spot trends more quickly.

Meaning you can pivot faster if something’s going wrong or capitalize on what’s working quicker.

Little and often can be much more effective than one and done. Especially when it comes to measuring employee engagement.

Combine data points from a variety of sources

Imagine you’re collecting employee feedback on your company culture and want to improve response rates. Consider:

• Reaching out to people from multiple teams—and following up if a particular team has a disproportionately low participation rate
• Requesting feedback more often—to obtain more real-time data
• Getting feedback from people throughout the organization, not just at a particular level or in a particular role

To get even more useful data throughout the year:

• Ask for feedback on multiple initiatives rather than just one or two
• Include employees in decision-making processes (or at least ask what they think of certain decisions so that they feel heard and valued)

The more data you have, the more in-depth your results will be and the more useful they’ll be for measuring employee engagement.

Make data collection ongoing

Many companies still send one large feedback survey per year. This allows them to track changes over several years.

But in the modern world, where things change so quickly, is yearly enough?

When you make data collection an ongoing initiative, you get an evolving, holistic picture of employee sentiment, rather than a point-in-time snapshot. Meaning the data you get is more accurate, precise, and actionable.

So you won’t just be measuring employee engagement for appearance’s sake. The data you collect can actually lead to positive changes across your organization.

Leverage tools

The right tools are a key part of any digital employee experience. They’re also key to measuring employee engagement. If you want to collect actionable data that can help you drive change within your business, having the right tool is even more important.

Using Workrowd, surveys will automatically go out after employee initiatives to see how team members feel in real time. You can set them to go out after certain milestones, too, and the software will analyze the results for you. That way, you don’t have to rifle through all the responses to find the data that matters.

Instead, you get more time to spend improving employees’ working lives and supporting your organization.

Conclusion

Employee engagement is a key metric that can foreshadow challenging business times, or help you adapt to upcoming challenges. High employee engagement can mean that it’s easier to weather storms, while low engagement is a sign of stormy seas ahead.

Measuring employee engagement is therefore vital if you want to be able to successfully navigate the modern business world. It shows your employees that you support them and listen to them, as well as helping you see how your decisions impact your employees in real time.

If you want to collect more feedback with less work, check out Workrowd. You can automatically send surveys and view the results once they’re already analyzed, meaning you have more time to drive change and support your employees. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

2025 is here. Which means it’s time to start thinking about the best ways to support employees over the coming year. And, more importantly, the best talent engagement strategies to implement.

Even companies with highly engaged employees need to actively work on keeping those employees engaged.

Otherwise, as trends move on, employees can become disconnected from their roles and the company mission. And end up quiet quitting or leaving completely.

So let’s dive in to some talent engagement strategies to maximize your results in 2025:

Development opportunities

Providing learning and development opportunities is going to top the list of talent engagement strategies for the foreseeable future.

LinkedIn data suggests that 57% of Gen Z employees want learning and development opportunities at work. So if you’re not providing them, you’re likely missing out on a massive pool of talent.

Not to mention that by not offering training opportunities, you risk falling behind your competitors from a knowledge and skills standpoint. Which means that both your business and your profits could suffer.

Career progression

Tying into the professional development topic, employees are far more likely to want to learn if they have a path laid out for them.

It gives them something to work toward—a purpose—and a goal to achieve.

Knowing that if they put the work in there’s a promotion waiting for them is a good way to retain your top talent, too. Building career ladders and lattices is a key element of successful talent engagement strategies.

Purpose 

More and more, employees want to feel like they’re contributing to something bigger. They want to feel empowered and do something that speaks to them on a deeper level, rather than just something that pays the bills.

Having a deeper company mission is one way to connect with your employees. It’s also one of the most important talent engagement strategies.

But purpose can also be simpler than this. It’s can be about clear communication. What do you actually need your employees to do? What is their purpose within your business?

The more connected employees feel to your purpose—and the reason why they’re there—the more you’ll get out of them. And the happier they’ll be to work for you.

AI

AI is here to stay, but using it in the right way is key to making sure it supports your business.  Employees need to be taught how to use it effectively and how it can help, not hinder, their roles.

Otherwise, they either won’t use it, or they’ll fear it’s going to steal their job.

For example, they need to learn things like how to fact check any stats AI provides to confirm they’re accurate (it usually doesn’t link to an original source even when you ask it to); how to write prompts effectively to get the end result they want; and how to use it for idea generation. 

They also need to keep in mind that while it’s good for bouncing ideas around, it’s essentially a regurgitation tool. So if they want something truly original or creative, they have to use it as a virtual assistant and still do the legwork themselves.

That said, ensuring they have the tools and skills they need when it comes to new technologies ranks high on the list of talent engagement strategies.

Recognition and gratitude

Employee recognition never goes out of style. And it never falls off the list of top talent engagement strategies.

People want to feel seen and like the hard work they put in is recognized. A little thank you or virtual high five goes a long way.

When you thank employees for their hard work, they feel appreciated and like they belong in the workplace. 

It doesn’t have to be about a shiny bonus or even a celebratory meal. Sometimes it’s just about getting a shoutout in a meeting or on your employee experience platform. Simple things that make employees feel more connected to your business and the people in it. And that show someone has noticed and appreciated their hard work.

Office returns

The sad fact is that the mass return to office that’s been happening over the last couple of years is unlikely to end.

While there are lots of reasons behind these office returns—and they make businesses less inclusive—there’s too much of a cultural desire to return to the world pre-Covid and act like it never happened.

There are upsides to seeing people face-to-face. It can change how employees engage with each other and enhance professional relationships.

But balance is key. Hybrid work is among the talent engagement strategies that allow you to attract and retain people who can’t (or don’t want to) come into the office every day, but who can still contribute to your business.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

It worries me that more and more, DEI is experiencing a backlash.

Big companies cutting their DEI budgets or roles; people complaining that everyone is too sensitive these days and how we can’t accommodate everyone; DEI businesses closing their doors because they’re not attracting enough business anymore.

I truly hope this doesn’t continue. But unless we’re actively working to create a more inclusive world, things can and will go backward.

Including one person doesn’t mean excluding anyone else. In fact, more diverse businesses have more engaged employees. And make more money as a result.

Championing diversity doesn’t mean making huge changes, either. It’s about having an open mind and finding ways to support everyone.

For instance, I’m lactose intolerant. Organizing an office lunch somewhere I can eat doesn’t mean anyone else misses out: we can all eat there.

It simply means I don’t get left out because everyone else can eat there but I can’t.

There’s no downside to including more people, so long as we remember not to exclude anyone—accidentally or otherwise.

Diversity benefits everyone, and definitely belongs on your list of talent engagement strategies.

Conclusion

These are just some of the talent engagement strategies to focus on in 2025. Several, such as recognition, are classics that never go out of style. Working on them and prioritizing them for your employee initiatives ensures team members always feel like a valued part of your business.

Newer additions like AI and purpose tap into current trends in the wider world. They’re things that are unlikely to go away any time soon, so the more your business can do to demonstrate attention to these areas, the more engaged your employees will be.

Discover what talent engagement strategies work best for your team

Want to find out what your employees want from you, and what could make them more engaged? Workrowd’s all-in-one suite of tools can help.

With a central hub for your employee experience including automated engagement surveys and real-time analytics, you’ll always have the data you need to maximize your impact. Get in touch today to book your free demo and find out more.

A little recognition can go a long way towards improving company culture and employee morale. So if you’re looking for some creative employee recognition ideas, you’re on the right track.

An employee who’s received recognition is 63% more likely to stay for the next three to six months, while a lack of recognition and engagement contributes to 44% of employees quiet quitting and/or changing jobs.

Recognition is a great way to reinforce positive attitudes, behaviors, and habits—far more effective than punishing someone for doing something wrong or making a mistake.

92% of employees are more likely to repeat an action if they receive recognition for it.

And, to top it off, 40% of US employees would put more effort into their work if they received more recognition. That’s a lot of employees who feel undervalued and underappreciated. And therefore aren’t working as hard as they would with the right culture.

If you’re seeing this in your business, implementing some creative employee recognition ideas can help you turn the tide.

Do you have a culture of recognition?

Whether someone has landed a new client, built a product really quickly, worked especially hard on a new project, or something else, celebrating them should be a no-brainer. It makes them feel like a valued member of the team and like they belong at your organization.

At most of my previous roles, no one ever said thank you like they meant it. It was always a quick “thanks” at the end of the day/week, when someone was going home. It felt more like an add-on or a courtesy rather than something someone actually meant.

Those places simply didn’t have cultures where employees’ hard work was recognized. Or at the very least, vocalized well. In fact, some people in positions of leadership genuinely admitted to feeling uncomfortable giving praise. Not a great example to set, I’m sure you’ll agree.

There was never a high-five (virtual or in person) around a job well done. When someone said “thank you” it felt like an off-hand, mandatory comment. Asking someone if they were making a pot of coffee was often said with more enthusiasm.

On the other hand, I can tell that people at Workrowd genuinely mean “thanks” when they say it. 

How? 

It’s in how they say it. The language usage; the timing; the detail; the fact it’s not the same words every time.

Even employees who don’t read into language as much as a writer like me will pick up on subtle cues. 

And that will affect how they feel about work and how much you get out of them in the short- and long-term. So let’s get into some creative employee recognition ideas to help you delight your team.

9 creative employee recognition ideas

If you want to establish or reinforce a positive culture, how do you show your employees you appreciate them?

Here are 9 creative employee recognition ideas:

Shoutout channel

This is a simple one that anyone can do: create a channel on Slack or Teams, or dedicate a krowd on Workrowd to celebrating people’s hard work. And use it!

If the space is quiet, people may feel uncomfortable reviving it. If it’s used regularly, employees will be more likely to want to give their colleagues a shoutout. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It starts with managers leading by example: if they create a culture of virtual high-fives, employees will follow suit. This might start with employees reacting to the posts, then it can escalate to them posting their own shoutouts too.

As creative employee recognition ideas go, this one costs nothing and can pay real dividends.

Meeting shoutouts

If someone has done something particularly well for the team, why not give them a shoutout in a meeting?

Sure, they might get a bit bashful, but they’ve worked hard. Don’t they deserve for the rest of the team to know how great they are?

When it comes to creative employee recognition ideas, something as simple as verbal acknowledgement can go a long way.

A day off for their birthday

Giving employees a day off for their birthday shows that you value their time. Make it clear you don’t expect them to work on a day that should be spent how they want, not how their employer chooses.

Decorate their desk for their birthday

If you give employees a day off for their birthday, you can do this the day before or after.

Balloons, streamers, a sash or a hat are all fun ways to show employees you appreciate them. And of course, it makes for some fun social media content.

You could also get them their favorite treat for everyone to munch on and celebrate as another creative employee recognition ideas option.

Celebrate them on social media

If an employee uses social media, why not give them a shoutout?

You could put together a montage of some of their achievements (if you already take lots of photos/videos) or write something heartfelt about the difference they make to the team.

Don’t just do this when someone is leaving! By then it’s too late.

Instead, use it to celebrate milestone achievements, special occasions, or even have an “employee of the week” feature where you celebrate someone different each week. These types of creative employee recognition ideas can make team members feel truly special.

Offer sabbaticals

Even if employees love their roles, that doesn’t mean they don’t still need a break sometimes. But it can be scary to go on a long-term break if you don’t know that you’ll have a job when you get back.

Allowing employees the chance to take a sabbatical shows them that you understand how hard they work, that they deserve a break, and that you value them enough to want them to come back after they’ve recharged.

It’s one of the creative employee recognition ideas that will truly set you apart from the competition.

Give extra PTO to long-term employees

Why not reward your long-term employees with extra days off based on how long they’ve worked with you?

This could help with retention too, as employees will want to stay to get the extra paid time off. Plus, those who’ve got it won’t want to give it up.

Offer training opportunities 

Employees understand better than ever that learning is a lifelong pursuit if they want to be at the forefront of their industry.

More than half want to develop skills that will put them in a better position for new opportunities in their current role, but only 32% are satisfied with their employer’s L&D perks. 

39% will likely leave within a year for a role with better learning opportunities. So if you’re not implementing creative employee recognition ideas that support your team’s future development, you’re risking high turnover and expensive hiring costs.

Connect employees with their colleagues

Work can be isolating, especially for underrepresented talent or people working at home.

Connecting employees with their colleagues using a platform like Workrowd helps them network, learn new skills, and discover new opportunities. It’s a powerful tool in your employee recognition and retention arsenal.

Get in touch to book your free demo and find out more.

Conclusion

Employee appreciation doesn’t have to involve grand gestures. But implementing some creative employee recognition ideas to show your team that you value them giving you their time and energy each day helps keep them motivated to serve you and your customers.

Ready to put some of these creative employee recognition ideas into action? Workrowd has the tools you need to make it a breeze. From setting up a dedicated space for recognition to monitoring employee feedback with automated surveys, you can do more in less time.

Which frees you to come up with even more creative employee recognition ideas. Drop us a note to schedule some time to talk at hello@workrowd.com today.

It’s easy to miss what’s happening at work when you’ve been sick, on vacation, or just busy. It isn’t always easy to catch up. That’s where a good internal communications strategy comes in.

Employees can struggle to stay in the loop when announcements are only shared via email or over chat and they have a ton of messages to read, let alone reply to.

75% of employees feel they miss out on company news because their employer has no internal communications department. Or they do and the department doesn’t deliver what they need.

Which isn’t surprising: 60% of companies have no long-term internal communications strategy.

This isn’t in line with what employees want. 44% want companies to adopt internal communications tools and 75% feel socially isolated. 

A better internal communications strategy can’t solve social isolation, but it can help lessen it. It can make employees feel more like a part of a team and like they’re working towards something bigger than them.

So how can you improve your internal communications strategy and set it up for success? Let’s dive in:

Be transparent

How much do you share with your employees about what’s happening in your business?

Do you share numbers like monthly profit or churn?

Sharing this information can help employees visualize what’s happening and help motivate them to reach team and company goals.

It’s important to be honest if things are going badly just as much as if they’re going well. This puts things into context as well as acting as a motivator.

Open communication is also good for employee morale. In fact, a third of employees said that a lack of it had the most negative impact on employee morale. Which means a solid internal communications strategy can make a big difference.

Send digital updates regularly

Setting a regular cadence around your internal communications strategy is also important. If employees know when to expect updates from you, they can more easily keep an eye out for them. If you send them sporadically, your updates are far more likely to get lost in the noise.

For example, you could set a schedule of updating every Monday morning. That way, the news is in someone’s inbox when they start work for the week, or shortly after when they’ve caught up on their weekend emails.

Keep it relevant

If there isn’t much to report, don’t ramble on for the sake of sending an update. Respect employees’ time and say there isn’t anything new to report.

In most cases, there will be something, whether that’s progress on a new deal, customers churning, people starting/leaving a role, or upcoming public holidays and how that will affect them (for instance if they get the day off). Your internal communications strategy should cover all of these elements.

Create an internal knowledge base

It can take up to eight months for employees to reach full productivity when they start a new role. They have a lot to learn about your offerings and ways of operating. Plus, they have many people to get to know. Because of that, your internal communications strategy can’t just focus on outreach.

If you want to shorten employees’ ramp-up process, an internal knowledge base where they can get FAQs answered is key and will make onboarding faster for your new hires and their managers. 

It also removes the embarrassment that comes from asking what can feel like basic questions. In addition, it ensures that the information people need is written down in an easy-to-find location.

New hires are also great for helping you spot gaps in your knowledge base. Be sure to ask them if there’s anything they’d add to it.

Have regular meetings

Even with frequent email or chat outreach, there’s still the possibility people will miss your updates. Covering them in a company-wide meeting means as many people will hear your message as possible.

These regular check-ins humanize leadership so that they don’t feel untouchable. Instead, they’re more approachable like other colleagues.

This ties back into being open and honest. You can only do that if you’re routinely sharing updates with your employees about what’s going on in the business in line with your internal communications strategy.

Track your success metrics

The only way you can be sure that your internal communications strategy works is if you have the right data. What do you want to track?

It could be your employee engagement metrics and how sharing news affects them; how often employees share about the company on social media; how comfortable employees feel coming to you with issues; the percentage of employees who fill in your feedback surveys.

Remember: just because you don’t get negative feedback, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It might mean that employees don’t feel comfortable coming to you with their problems. In that case you have a serious employee experience challenge to tackle.

Use Workrowd

Workrowd can help you and your employees connect more easily. You can ensure you’re sending messages out to the right groups; keep every document and announcement they need in one place; and automate surveys to collect feedback. Not only does that cut down on unnecessary messages, but even if someone misses an email or social media post for whatever reason, they can still find all the information they need with just a couple clicks.

We can also help you track the impact of your employee programs, groups, and events with real-time analytics. That way you can act on the results—and improve your employee experience—faster.

Want to find out more? Get in touch today to book your free demo.

Conclusion

Your internal communications strategy plays a huge role in employee engagement and morale. It ensures people know what’s happening and means they can better prepare for what’s ahead, whether that’s positive or negative.

Knowing what’s happening within the business and wider industry is also a motivating factor for many people. Meaning it can help you get more from your workforce.

If you’d like to get better results from your internal communications strategy, why not try Workrowd? We can help you more effectively share updates with your team, collect feedback, and so much more. Visit us online to see how we can partner to deliver more value for your employees with less stress.

Communities are powerful. Whether they’re in school, in a city or town, or they’re employee communities, they can make a big impact.

Not only do they provide social opportunities, but they can also benefit our physical and mental health, helping us fight off everything from depression to chronic pain.

There’s no reason a work-related community can’t have just as big of an impact as social circles in our personal lives. In fact, work is often a place where people form long-term friendships.

Employee communities can help you nurture these relationships and can benefit your business, too.

What are employee communities?

Employee communities empower employees to connect with colleagues, regardless of company size.

For distributed or large companies, this can make a huge difference, resulting in a 39% increase in job satisfaction. No wonder 90% of Fortune 500s now have employee communities.

In the last five years, there’s been a 29% increase in employee engagement through employee communities. What’s more, they can enable a 14% increase in retention rates.

So if engagement and retention are areas you want to improve in your business, it might be time to look into how you can get more from employee communities.

How to get more out of employee communities

Let’s explore how you can maximize the results you get from employee communities.

Welcome new members

Have you ever walked into a room full of strangers only to have every pair of eyes turn to look at you…but nobody comes over to say hi?

Or worse, no one acknowledges that you’re even there?

For employee communities to be a success, every member should be made to feel like they’re welcome, regardless of how long they’ve been there.

If things start to get cliquey, it’s immediately off-putting and could harm your retention and engagement rather than boosting it.

Welcomes don’t have to be anything major, just a simple hello is enough. Something to acknowledge their presence and encourage other members of the group to welcome them, too.

Using the right tools to organize your employee communities can even highlight who’s new to a group. That way, fellow members know who could use a welcome. A little hello can go a long way.

Get leaders involved

Leaders set the tone for an organization. If they see employee communities as something they can set and forget, they’re unlikely to ever take off with employees.

If leaders are actively involved, regularly promote them, and make your employee communities seem important, employees will be more likely to want to use them, too.

But first, leaders have to explain the benefits. Otherwise, people will wonder what the point of it all is.

This could come in the form of a company-wide email, a LinkedIn post, an internal social media post, a poster in the office, or all of the above.

The more you do to get the word out—and regularly remind people employee communities exist—the better.

Have a shared purpose

One of the strongest ways to build connection is by sharing a purpose. It puts us all on even footing regardless of other criteria.

Having a strong purpose can also benefit our mental health as it gives us something to keep us focused.

Whether that shared purpose is improved diversity in the workplace, mentoring those earlier on in their careers, contributing to the environment, or something else, a shared purpose connects employees like nothing else. It gives them a reason to check in, stay on track, and take part in activities.

This common purpose then helps everyone organize activities and agree on goals.

It makes it clear to new hires who the group is for and therefore automatically qualifies people before they join.

Depending on employee communities’ success and engagement levels, they could also work to improve your employer brand.

It shows the outside world what matters to your employees and that the business contributes to something beyond just profit. Which further helps you attract more people with the same mission.

Collect feedback

Collecting feedback is important for every part of a business. It’s the only way to learn and grow. Employee communities are no exception.

Group leaders and HR should regularly check in with employees. It’s important to see what they want or need from the group, and what could be improved on.

Or even what employee communities they want to see, how people are managing them, and if you need a better tool to organize them.

You could collect the answers anonymously, which helps make employees feel more comfortable being honest. This is especially true if they’re from a background that’s underrepresented within the workforce.

Anonymity can also change how others respond to the feedback, making it a useful tool for driving change in the workplace.

Conclusion 

Employee communities enable colleagues who have similar interests or purposes to connect around a shared cause or topic. This helps reduce loneliness, which negatively impacts productivity, performance, mental health, and physical health. It could be the difference between a workplace of engaged employees who want to work or disengaged employees who are quiet quitting.

When organized in the right way, communities give your employees a greater sense of connection to their workplace and their colleagues. They help them stay focused while also feeling like they’re contributing to a larger purpose.

Use Workrowd to manage your employee communities

Workrowd can help you manage your employee communities so they’re easier to organize and employees want to join them.

You can put all the documents you need in one place, send automated feedback surveys, and create a greater sense of belonging in your business. Not to mention, you’ll gain access to analytics dashboards that ensure you always know how your communities are advancing your business.

If you’d like to connect your employees with easy to manage employee communities, get in touch today to discuss how we can support you and book your free demo.

It’s no secret that having engaged employees can make a big difference for your company culture and your bottom line.

For every disengaged employee, it costs businesses an additional 1/3 of their paycheck. Unfortunately, 85% of employees are disengaged at work, meaning that businesses are paying a lot more than they should be for their workforce and getting a lower ROI per employee.

How do you fix that?

One way is by leveraging personalization in your employee experience. This can help you tap into employees’ internal motivations, improving engagement and productivity.

Let’s look at some ways you can use personalization to help you on the path to more engaged employees:

Use several communication methods

During the pandemic, only half of businesses offered personalized internal communication options. Which means that a lot of the internal messaging happening would’ve come via word-of-mouth or may not have reached people at all.

We all digest information in different ways, and internal communications are no different.

Most businesses have their preferred ways of communicating. Technology makes it easier than ever to combine options to suit both organizations and employees.

For instance, meeting tools now have auto-transcripts. These closed captions aren’t perfect—and are far better with some accents than others, as my English accent knows all too well—but they make it easier for employees with auditory processing issues, or who are hard of hearing, to understand what’s happening and not feel left out.

Tools like these can also create agendas or notes at the end of meetings, meaning everyone can see what the key topics and takeaways are.

Video tools, meanwhile, now have auto-transcripts or allow time-poor employees to increase the speed to get through them faster.

There are so many options now that you don’t need to stick to one form of communication and risk leaving employees out. You want everyone to feel in the loop when you’re aiming for more engaged employees.

Support different ways of learning

77% of L&D professionals believe learning is imperative to employee engagement.

But everyone learns in different ways.

Some people might favor an intensive, all-day workshop, while others may prefer something that’s self-paced.

One of the fascinating things about being human is how differently we all learn.

But just like with school, businesses can prioritize one type of learning over others, meaning that some get to excel while others fall behind purely because their brain works in a different way from what’s treated as “normal.”

When you offer employees different ways to learn skills or process information, it shows you see them as individuals. That you’re not going to hold their short attention spans, desire to tackle one task at a time, or fact that they learn in a different way from their colleagues, against them.

It also means any training you offer comes with a higher ROI because employees will stay, and therefore use, more of what they’ve learned. So your business benefits so much more.

Regardless of how an employee learns, they—and your business—still get all the benefits that come from learning. The only difference is that there are several paths they can take to learning that new skill. And you get more out of them, and more engaged employees, as a result.

Provide multiple career development options

Just like everyone learns differently, not every employee will take the same path to promotion, either. Some people might want to be managers in the future, while others would rather be your subject matter experts instead. That doesn’t make those employees who don’t want to manage people less beneficial to your business.

Some employees may feel that their only path to a promotion or a pay raise is to go into a people management role when it isn’t the right fit for them.

This can cause stress and disengagement among your managers and employees, with poor management being one of the main reasons employees leave their roles.

So what can you do instead?

The more options you give your team members, the more supported they’ll feel. And the more likely you’ll be to have engaged employees.

Some options include:

• Changing departments, like going from marketing to sales
• Moving to working on commission or increasing commission rates
• Taking on a people management role
• Becoming a knowledge leader, like a principal engineer

These are all different paths to career development, taking a more personal approach than the typical assumption that the only way to grow in a career is to stop honing technical skills and move into honing people skills.

Some people just aren’t cut out for traditional management, or don’t want to do it. That doesn’t mean they’re not great employees. Or that they’re not engaged employess. Embracing different types of workers and career growth will help with employee engagement, internal knowledge, and retention.

Don’t assume all benefits appeal to everyone

Different benefits appeal to different employees. A child-free person isn’t going to find subsidized childcare appealing, for example, but for a parent—especially in a country where childcare is expensive—this could be a key selling point.

Likewise, a healthcare plan is less appealing in a country that has free or subsidized healthcare.

For a long time, businesses have taken a one-size-fits-all approach to benefits. This treats every employee the same, rather than considering individuals’ life experiences and needs.

Rather than making assumptions or following trends, why not ask your employees what benefits they want?

You can send your employees a survey to find out what benefits appeal to them. This shows them that their opinions matter to you, and that you’re listening. If you want more engaged employees, listening to them, and acting on what they say, is key.

Conclusion

With the rise of technology and AI, there are fewer excuses than ever not to offer your employees more personalized experiences.

Technology can help you repurpose information in multiple ways, collect employee sentiment, and analyze the results.

If you want to personalize your employee experience in pursuit of more engaged employees, Workrowd has the tools you need.

From personalizable dashboards so every team member can quickly access the information that’s most important to them, to automated feedback surveys so you always know how to improve, it’s all just a click away.

Ready to see how we can help you create more engaged employees without the stress? Visit us online today, or send us a note directly at hello@workrowd.com.

Globally, fewer than a quarter of employees are actively engaged. And I can’t help but feel that number could get worse as employees worry about their jobs due to the rise of AI and automation. Workplace engagement activities offer a way to counter the forces of disengagement.

Almost two-thirds of employees today opt to quiet quit and do the bare minimum. Businesses need to consider how to reengage these employees before they lose them and spend thousands per role replacing valuable internal knowledge.

In a recent interview, James Timpson, CEO of British company Timpson Group, explained the importance of valuing and supporting employees.

In his first role, he found that “bosses were the sales prevention team,” and that “so many people work really really hard and no one ever says thank you to them.”

How do you ensure you’re not the type of boss who’s on the sales prevention team? And show some gratitude to your hard-working employees so that they want to show up to work?

These simple things improve employee engagement and make people more likely to perform at their best. Helping you make more money through better customer service and higher retention.

So, let’s explore some tactics to ensure your workplace engagement activities make a real difference for your team.

Be Values-Driven

All too often, employees believe that the higher-ups don’t care about them.

There can also be the belief from leaders that employees at the bottom of the ladder are the most easily replaceable.

But even employees who get paid the least have valuable skills and company knowledge that’s expensive—and time-consuming—to replace.

Every role requires different skills. Supporting all employees, regardless of their rank, speaks volumes about your company values and how you operate your business.

For example, Timpson has a budget of £1 million per year to spend on things that improve employees’ quality of life. One of the most common things that money gets spent on? New teeth.

It sounds like a small thing, but it’s a huge expense that many employees can’t afford. Even though it can make a huge difference to their confidence.

This kind of support builds loyalty to a business and shows that you notice—and care about—the little things for everyone. Adhering strongly to your values will ensure your workplace engagement activities can drive maximum results.

Send a survey

Surveys are a great way to get insights into your workforce and what they need from you.

When you send them regularly, using a tool like Workrowd that can automate the process, it shows your employees that you’re serious about listening to, and implementing, their feedback.

You can get real-time insights into how your workplace engagement activities are impacting your workforce. That way, you always know what’s working, and where you can improve.

Celebrate

How often do you celebrate employee achievements and milestones?

It doesn’t have to be a massive celebration. Sometimes a simple “thank you” can go a long way.

Other times, you may want to treat everyone to lunch (virtually or in person), give them an extra day off for their birthday, or reward them for having worked for you for so long.

Whatever you do, just remember that there’s no downside to showing gratitude and recognizing employees. Workplace engagement activities that focus on celebrating achievements can help reinforce your company culture.

Create ERGs

Employee groups are a great way for team members to meet like-minded colleagues.

They can reduce the isolation that comes from remote work and connect a global workforce. What’s more, they can be key drivers of workplace engagement activities for your organization.

Meeting people with similar interests or goals helps employees feel like they belong in the workplace, something which is increasingly important in our digitally-focused world.

Want more from your ERGs? Get in touch to find out how we can help you supercharge your employee groups.

Be inclusive

Inclusion is one of those words that always seems trendy but is so rarely understood, a bit like “authenticity.”

You can give the illusion of these things—particularly in job descriptions—but that doesn’t mean that when someone joins your business they actually feel included.

Being truly inclusive means holding ongoing DEI training and ensuring everyone actively works to support others in being their authentic selves. 

They can only be authentic when they feel psychologically safe in the workplace, and that starts with management.

Managers must set examples by being open—and maybe even vulnerable—so that employees know it’s okay to be that way, too.

When your organization is truly inclusive, you’ll find that your workplace engagement activities can deliver real impact.

Be transparent

When someone is transparent with us, we’re more likely to trust them.

If we know they’ve lied in the past, that trust may never recover. Ask any politician.

Transparent businesses have employees who are more open and honest, too. Employees know where they’re at and what they’re working toward.

This trust builds loyalty and means employees will want to stick around because they’ll feel invested in the business, and like the business is invested in them.

It can make your workplace engagement activities feel more genuine and less forced, and ensure people want to participate in them.

Offer training

93% of millennials and Gen Z employees expect businesses to offer training opportunities. Almost half of employees would change jobs because of the training opportunities provided.

As technology changes, reskilling will become imperative for millions of people to stay in work.

Just because someone’s job becomes obsolete, that doesn’t mean their internal knowledge isn’t still valuable. 

If you have a particularly complicated product or service, retaining that internal knowledge is more important than ever because training new hires costs so much and takes so long.

Training doesn’t just have to be about adapting to the changing workplace, though. 

Some people just love to learn (I’m one of them), so having regular lunch and learns or scheduled study time helps stimulate new connections in their brains and can make them more creative.

Did you know some of the most successful scientists also write poetry?

Ada Lovelace, widely thought of as the world’s first computer programmer, was the daughter of poet Lord Byron—and a poet in her own right. (She and her father are also buried in my hometown!)

As Ada put it, “There is no great invention without a great imagination.” She was right 200 years ago, and she’s still right now.

Most people assume arts and science are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but the most powerful creative and scientific work stems from an understanding of both.

So why not encourage those connections in your workplace? Leveraging your workplace engagement activities to help employees build new skills is key to attracting and retaining top talent.

Conclusion

Creating more engaged employees starts by making them feel supported in the workplace. And that starts by listening to them. 

What do they need from you?

And what can you do better? 

Once you know, you can then design workplace engagement activities that cater directly to your team’s wants and needs.

Want to maximize your ROI when it comes to workplace engagement activities? Workrowd’s platform is your all-in-one solution.

With tools to help you market, manage, and measure your workplace engagement activities, you can delight every employee without the stress.

Ready to learn more? Visit us online or reach out directly at hello@workrowd.com.

Gallup research suggests that 59% of employees are quiet quitting or actively disengaged.

This has been a growing problem since the pandemic, a once-in-a-lifetime event that caused many people to rethink their lives and priorities.

And which happened in between many other once-in-a-lifetime events like financial crises and wars. 

All this upheaval has left many with a feeling of malaise. Which means people want more from their jobs—and their employers—to compensate for it.

So let’s see how you can reengage employees who are quiet quitting: 

Reflect on leadership

If a large number of employees appear to be quiet quitting, it’s time to reflect on what the common denominator is. And that’s often leadership.

Are employees unhappy with their managers? Or the way higher-ups choose to run the company?

Attitude is contagious, which means if your managers come across as disconnected, it can have a negative impact on employees.

It can also be demoralizing if managers put too much pressure on employees or don’t understand their issues.

Managers need to listen to their employees’ concerns and take them into account whether they’re about their roles, the company, or the manager themselves.

It’s only when leaders take employees’ concerns onboard that the organization can really make a difference on employee disengagement and quiet quitting.

Support employee wellbeing

Employee wellbeing plays a huge role in engagement. What steps do you take to ensure your employees are happy and healthy at work?

44% of employees felt stressed for most of their previous workday. This is a huge percentage and shows that businesses aren’t taking employee wellbeing seriously. With numbers like this, is it really any wonder that quiet quitting is so common?

Reflect on deadlines

Are you being realistic with the deadlines that you give your employees?

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone works well under tight deadlines.

When deadlines are too tight or there are too many at once, it can put a lot of pressure on employees. This increased pressure can cause them to disconnect or experience task paralysis, where they don’t know which task to focus on so don’t do anything.

Feeling overwhelmed is a direct route to burnout and quiet quitting.

Pay more

Pay is one of the main reasons for employee disengagement. And when you look at how much house prices have gone up compared to pay, it’s really no surprise. Our money just doesn’t go as far as it used to.

So if what an employee earns doesn’t help them reach their financial goals, there’s a possibility they may become disconnected from their role because they feel like the things we’ve always been taught to strive for—such as having a house and financial security—are impossible. So why bother putting any effort in?

Consider if how well you pay your employees aligns with the market rate and living situation in their location.

For instance, in the UK, we have the national minimum wage and the national living wage. The national minimum wage is what businesses are legally required to pay. The living wage is a higher rate based on the cost of living.

You could also offer financial advice or financial literacy classes. But beware of doing this if you pay under the market rate because it could backfire. Learning they’re being underpaid can encourage quiet quitting among employees, if not outright quitting.

Offer peer-to-peer support

ERGs are a great way to connect like-minded employees. Whether team members bond over shared backgrounds or experiences, it deepens their ties to your business.

You could also offer support, mentoring, and coaching through these groups.

In addition, ERGs can help combat loneliness in the workplace and offer employees workplace progression opportunities through the ability to network beyond their everyday colleagues.

With stronger relationships across the organization, employees will be less susceptible to quiet quitting.

Consider your company culture

If employees’ values don’t align with yours, they’re far more likely to find themselves disconnecting or quiet quitting.

It’s increasingly important to employees that their values are in line with those of their employer. But it doesn’t always happen.

To see how your employees’ values compare to yours, send out an employee feedback survey. This will help you determine what really matters to them and whether you’re on the right track.

You could ask them for ideas on a charity you could contribute to, activities you could take part in, or causes you could get involved with. 

Make sure you genuinely try to make a difference with your social impact efforts, rather than just changing your company logo or paying lip service to issues. Both employees and the outside world will see through it pretty quickly if you’re not walking the talk.

Reflect on company priorities

What do your company priorities look like? Are they out of date?

For example, what an oil company should be prioritizing now is very different from what it was looking at 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. In 2024, they need to look more at eco-friendly pursuits.

Businesses also need to think about what true diversity and inclusion looks like, and practice what they preach to get the most out of their employees and prevent quiet quitting.

Get their feedback

The only way to know how employees feel is to collect their feedback. You could do this through focus groups or employee surveys.

By keeping your finger on the pulse of employee sentiment, you can head off quiet quitting before it starts.

Conclusion

Just because there’s a current trend for quiet quitting, that doesn’t mean it’s out of your hands. Instead, make your employees feel supported and you’re halfway to reactivating disengaged employees.

Want a little help along the way? Workrowd’s suite of tools can help you combat quiet quitting and boost engagement across your organization.

With a central hub for company culture, automated surveys, and real-time analytics, you have the power to drive real change.

Curious to learn more? Drop by our site or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

Less than half of the US population is extroverted. Yet it often feels like the working environment caters to people who like loud, busy spaces and people all day, every day, everywhere. Which can be really challenging for introverts in the workplace.

On top of that, qualifying for promotions often requires socializing with colleagues. Those who don’t risk being seen as weird, looked down on, or treated differently.

So why are extroverted personalities valued more in the workplace if most of the population is introverted?

When you consider that a study of over 900 CEOs found that introverts were more likely to exceed investors’ expectations more often, and studies showed that introverts made better leaders, why aren’t we supporting employees who like the quiet life more often?

Why don’t we design more processes and spaces around the needs of introverts in the workplace?

What is an introvert?

Before we go any further, let’s dispel some common myths about introverts.

Many people assume introverts hate people. But introversion and misanthropy aren’t the same thing.

A lot of introverts actually like socializing. They just need time to recharge on their own or with people they’re close to.

The best way I’ve heard it described (and seen it demonstrated by other people) is that extroverts get their energy from other people. Introverts get it from alone time.

For an introvert, this might mean reading a book, watching TV, walking the dog—whatever works for them. There’s no one-size-fits-all way to recharge.

An introvert might have enough energy for work, but not have any left for post-work socializing. Or they may find an open-plan office overwhelming.

So, with that in mind, how can you boost engagement among introverts in the workplace? 

Allow for flexible working

Different types of working suit different types of personalities. Over 80% of extroverted employees want a hybrid work model, with 15% preferring full-time remote work.

Three-fourths of introverts also want to be in the office at least part-time.

This could be because work is often a place where we socialize. Introverts may not speak to many people if they don’t go out of the house. Plus, it takes extra effort to go out (speaking from my own experience and that of my introverted friends).

Everyone is different, though, and allowing for flexible working helps you create a more diverse workforce from every direction. It can go a long way towards boosting engagement among introverts in the workplace.

Have a quiet space/ time

Open-plan offices can be extremely noisy, overstimulating places.

When I used to work in an office, someone would be playing music, someone else would have a really loud voice that carried across the room, another would be boiling the kettle, someone else would be washing their mug, cars would be driving past…it was nonstop for eight hours a day. And that was only the noise.

It usually wouldn’t take long before I needed to either get away from my desk because I was feeling fidgety, or I needed to be on my own as I was overwhelmed by being surrounded by so many people. But there was really nowhere for me to go and work quietly.

Offering a quiet place for employees to focus helps them recharge while still getting work done.

For remote businesses, allowing employees to turn off email or Slack/Teams notifications for a couple of hours is the digital equivalent.

In both instances, employees can focus on what they’re trying to do, rather than draining their energy blocking out what’s going on around them. Cutting it out can give introverts in the workplace more energy and boost their mental health.

Avoid forced/ mandatory socializing

For introverts in the workplace, socializing with coworkers can present challenges. It may instill fear that they’ll get overlooked for promotions or their colleagues won’t like them as much because they didn’t go out for drinks on a Friday night, or wanted to go for a walk on their own instead of going for a group lunch.

And the unspoken requirement to go, even if it’s not actually mandatory.

Employees need to feel like they can say no to workplace drinks without someone trying to talk them into it. Or that their career will suffer because of it. They shouldn’t need to justify not wanting to socialize with their colleagues outside of work.

Show different kinds of leadership

The stereotypical idea of leadership is often more extroverted and focuses on traits that are considered masculine.

However, studies have shown that introverted and female leadership styles are actually more effective.

This includes showing empathy and actively listening to your employees.

The more you demonstrate different kinds of leadership, the more it will benefit your employees, managers, and future hires.

Introverts in the workplace will also see a possible career path for themselves, even if they don’t fit into a typical extroverted management style.

Managers won’t feel the need to live up to false expectations, mask who they really are, or hide how they feel.

Future hires will see a business that celebrates and supports diversity, making them want to work there.

Offer different ways to communicate

Every business has its preferred way(s) to communicate. Considering individuals’ preferences enables them to get the most from a conversation.

For example, some people prefer written feedback because they can take their time to digest it. But for the person giving the feedback, a video can sometimes be quicker.

The solution? Transcribe the video!

Technology makes it easier than ever to combine different types of communication so that everyone can benefit. Including and especially introverts in the workplace.

Embrace active listening

Sometimes, someone will look like they’re not paying attention in a meeting, but they’re actually listening actively. This can have long-term benefits, allowing for other perspectives.

However, there’s often the assumption that someone isn’t paying attention because they’re not speaking up during a meeting.

Sometimes people genuinely lack the confidence to speak up—especially if they’re a minority in the room.

Other times, they’re percolating.

But it’s important to give people the space to listen, and that one person—or one group of people—doesn’t hog the conversation. Quieter members of the team should feel able to share their opinions without judgement, but likewise should be able to listen without comments that they’re too quiet.

Conclusion

When more than half the working population is introverted, it doesn’t make sense to exclude them or expect them to behave like the minority.

The most successful businesses celebrate and support employees’ differences, as these can be turned into strengths that help the business grow and develop.

In turn, this benefits employees’ productivity and confidence, improving engagement and retention.

How is your organization supporting introverts in the workplace? If you’re looking for ways to ensure employees can get and stay connected on their terms, Workrowd can help.

With employee groups, personalizable settings, automated feedback surveys and more, everything you need is in one place. Want to see how our tools could improve outcomes for introverts in the workplace at your organization? Visit us online or email us at hello@workrowd.com.