Category: Employee Engagement

When employees are engaged, they’re more likely to stay. They’ll help you attract better-quality candidates when you hire, and you’ll make more money. So just invest in your biggest employee engagement drivers and you’ll be set, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to identify your most effective employee engagement drivers. Simple things that keep employees engaged are often overlooked. And the more of them you overlook, the more significantly they’ll affect your business.

Your company culture, mission, and industry will impact which employee engagement drivers actually move the needle. 

For example, meaningful work for a home health aide can be very different from that for a salesperson in SaaS. That being said, there are some core principles that matter regardless of industry or role. 

So, what are some employee engagement drivers that companies often overlook? Let’s explore:

Meaningful work

While a paycheck is great, many now want more from their work than just being able to pay the bills. 

Think about why you do what you do. Is it just to earn money, or do you want to make a difference by solving genuine problems?

Not every employee wants the responsibility of managing people or running their own business. That doesn’t mean they don’t still want to make a difference. 

Most of their time is spent at work, so work is where they’re most likely to be able to drive change.

Many of us feel like we spend our working days just going through the motions, though. It can leave us with little energy to do something meaningful when we get home.

How can you change that? Some of it ties into…

Company culture

When your company culture is communicated clearly, you’re more likely to attract—and retain—employees whose values align with yours. 

This then means that they’re more aligned with your mission. They’ll feel like what they’re doing is meaningful because they want to solve the same problem(s) that you do.

However, too frequently how a company culture comes across to the outside world versus what it’s like for employees who spend their time there are two very different things.

If the culture you say you have differs from what you actually have, it will affect your employer brand. 

The more former employees and job candidates who talk about this disconnect on sites like Glassdoor, the more it will leave you to firefight two problems: your tattered brand and your poor culture.

It’s easy to become disconnected from what’s really happening as a business grows. 

Asking employees for their genuine opinions and experiences, and embracing the good and the bad, will help you to see what direction your company is really headed in and what the culture is like.

You can then use this information to look at what’s working and what needs to change.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in business—a healthy company culture takes work. This is especially important for those in positions of power. Leading by example is one of the most important ways to develop the type of culture you want to create.

Career goals

Most people want to achieve something in their careers, even if they can’t articulate what that is. Helping employees to figure out—and achieve—their career goals can be a key employee engagement driver. 

Their enthusiasm for their role will be contagious, having a ripple effect on their peers.

It may even attract more like-minded candidates when it’s time for you to hire.

Setting out clear paths for employees to grow can be one way to support them. While the stereotypical path of career growth ends up with someone becoming a manager, not everyone wants this. 

Offering other paths, such as for them to become a go-to expert on a particular product or industry, enables them to increase their experience, income, and responsibility, without managing people.

You could also allow them to change teams or departments, or even work in a different location. These changes can help keep things fun and engaging for them. New skills and ideas can come from anywhere.

The more options you can offer employees to help them grow, the more likely they’ll be to stick around. And the more attractive you’ll be as an employer to candidates.

Belonging

A sense of belonging can boost our physical and mental health, improving everything from depression to heart disease. It can also be a big employee engagement driver because we care about who we work with and what we’re doing.

While this may not seem that important, Deloitte found that fostering a sense of belonging in the workplace can lead to:

• 50% lower turnover risk
• 167% increase in employer net promoter score
• 2x more employee raises
• 10x more promotions
• 75% decrease in sick days

Just one of those stats is impressive. When you see them together like that, it makes you wonder why more businesses haven’t worked harder on this.

To give employees a true sense of belonging, they need to feel comfortable being themselves, like they have meaningful relationships with coworkers, and like their skills make a difference to the business.

One of the ways you can do this (other than developing your company culture) is through…

Recognition

There’s nothing worse than a manager who takes credit for their employees’ ideas. We’ve all met someone like this at some point though, right?

When managers do this, it’s deeply unfair to their employees. This lack of appreciation makes employees wonder why they bothered in the first place. Which means they’ll be less inclined to share any future great ideas they may have.

People management isn’t just about telling someone what to do. It’s also about celebrating their successes and great ideas.

When someone does well, of course it reflects positively on their managers and the company. 

But it’s going to mean a lot less to that employee without someone to recognize when a great thing happened because of the employee’s work.

Never underestimate the power of a simple ‘thank you,’ especially when it comes to employee engagement drivers.

Conclusion 

Employee engagement affects every aspect of a business, from retention to productivity to sick days. 

The more you support your employees to feel comfortable in the workplace being themselves, connected with their colleagues, and like they’re making a meaningful contribution to the business, the bigger the difference you’ll see.

If you’re looking to tap into the power of these employee engagement drivers, take a look at Workrowd’s suite of tools. Our one-stop platform offers an array of features to help you market, manage, and measure employee engagement drivers across groups, programs, and events. Send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

It’s all too easy to focus on criticizing people for doing things badly or wrong, and far too convenient to forget to comment on the positive. For a happy, productive workforce, you really need a balance of both. That’s why it’s so important to find ways to recognize employees.

Employees will be happier and more productive going forward if you focus on celebrating the positives instead of criticizing them and homing in on the negatives. Focusing on those positives will build their confidence, making them better in their roles.

According to Harvard Business Review, employees need six pieces of positive feedback for every one piece of negative feedback. Low-performing teams were found to have been given an average of three negative comments for every positive comment.

Given that we often focus on the negatives, and that positive feedback triggers dopamine—AKA one of the happy hormones—in our brains, are these stats really that surprising?

Our culture isn’t wired to celebrate the positives, though. Unless you’re a very serious optimist, you may find it hard to come up with ways to recognize employees and show just how much you appreciate them.

So here are a few simple ways you can do just that.

Give them a shout out in meetings

This is one of the easiest ways to recognize employees, and sometimes it’s all you need.

Make sure whatever you comment on is specific. Don’t just say “great job;” explain why and how they did a great job.

Being specific will help both them and their teammates to understand why what that person did worked. It will then encourage that employee, along with their teammates, to approach related situations in a similar way going forward.

Tell them one-on-one

It’s sometimes nice to pull someone aside and give them a pat on the back in person (or via video). If your team member is quieter or shyer, they might prefer this to a shout out in a meeting. 

However, if you decide to do this and arrange the meeting in advance, make sure they know you want to talk to them about something positive. Otherwise, they may start to worry that they’ve done something wrong. Particularly if previous places they’ve worked at didn’t highlight the positives in this way.

You don’t have to plan the call in advance, though. You could send positive feedback in an email or Slack message instead.

Send them a present

Sending someone a present is a simple way to show them you appreciate them. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. In fact, a thoughtful gift that shows you listen to them will mean much more than something generic.

For instance, if they’re into stationery, you could get them a pretty fountain pen, or if they’re into reading, a new book in a genre they like to read.

One thing you don’t want to do is send them something that has the company’s branding on it. This will feel generic, soulless, and like you’re only doing it to promote your own business.

Take them on a day out

A day out can be just what we need sometimes to feel refreshed and ready to take on the world. 

You could give them a voucher to go on a day out with their family or take them somewhere you think they’d enjoy. It doesn’t have to be work-related. Sometimes it’s better if it’s not, as it will offer a welcome break from the daily grind.

Pay for a training course

Your best employees are the ones you want to stick around. What better way to show them you appreciate them than investing in their future?

Ask them what skills they’d like to learn and find some courses that might help them build those capabilities.

Ask if they’d like to be a coach

Your best employees are often the best coaches because they can help others to develop the habits that made them so successful in their role. 

The more people who adopt the right mindset, the more benefits your business will experience.

If they’re unsure, you could send them on a coaching/leadership training program so that they understand what would be required from them before they get involved.

Reward the team

Most people couldn’t do their job without the awesome people around them. So why not reward everyone they work with for their win? 

It’ll encourage better teamwork and a greater sense of camaraderie. Their teammates will celebrate their win, too. When thinking about ways to recognize employees, it can be helpful to consider the larger group and not just one or two individuals.

Give them a shout out on social media

What you post on social media reflects your internal culture. So, if you take the time to celebrate your employees’ wins, it shows the rest of the world that you truly appreciate how hard your team members work for you. 

It reflects a positive, grateful culture that’s about so much more than turning a profit.

This will help to attract better candidates, shortening your hiring process and reducing the cost to hire. It’s a win for your employees and a win for you.

Conclusion 

Recognizing employees doesn’t have to cost a fortune. It doesn’t have to cost anything! 

Most of us spend more time with our colleagues than we do our loved ones. Working remotely hasn’t changed this all that much, with many of us super-glued to our screens and sometimes working even longer hours than we did before the pandemic.

And let’s not forget—just because someone chooses to work for you now, that doesn’t mean they’re going to stay. Especially if their hours have increased and they have less time to spend with their loved ones, even though they’re working from home.

Showing a little appreciation for an employee’s hard work can go a long way to retaining them. After all, they’re choosing to spend their time and energy with you. That’s a privilege that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

If you’re looking for more ways to recognize employees and build a top-notch company culture, see if Workrowd’s employee experience platform might be a good fit. Our central hub for culture, engagement, and recognition makes it easy for team members to connect and support each other. Send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

Tracking employee engagement metrics can help you prevent absenteeism, build your brand, reduce employee turnover, and make more money. 

It can also help you spot issues within your workforce which could turn into bigger problems if left unaddressed.

What employee engagement metrics do you need to track, though? Which are going to show you what areas need work, or how employees really feel? Let’s take a look.

Absenteeism

How often employees are out sick—and how long they’re out for—can be huge indicators of employee engagement.

Stress can weaken our immune systems, meaning we’re more susceptible to germs and infections. 

Not to mention there’s the psychological toll of stress, which can cause long-term absences.

A controlling, closed-off, and judgmental company culture can make employees feel uncomfortable sharing that they’re stressed. When employees don’t mention their concerns to colleagues, it makes it harder to find solutions.

Negative company cultures that don’t support employees’ mental health reinforce stigmas and can make stress worse.

Of course, stress isn’t the only thing that can cause employees to repeatedly miss work. There are lots of reasons, and if an employee is frequently absent, it’s worth finding out why. 

Companies often use formulas to track employee absences, but they offer a very black and white picture. You can’t compare the health of someone who’s chronically ill or disabled with someone who hasn’t had a cold in a decade.

Instead of relying on a formula, look for patterns. Are employees out after certain events? Or at a particular time of the year? 

Patterns will help you identify issues. Investigating the story behind them will allow you to make more informed decisions and accommodations.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS measures how likely someone is to recommend your business to another person, on a scale of 1 to 10. 

How an employee rates your business on this scale will tell you more than you might be comfortable with.

Especially when only scores of 9-10 count as promoters. Scores of 7 and 8 are neutral, and scores of 6 or below are detractors. 

These scores can be a real indicator of whether employees are happy in their roles or not. 

If your NPS goes down over time, it may be worth tracking backwards to see how things have changed. Investigating what measures were put into place before the score trended downward will help you turn the tide.

You can apply the Net Promoter Score approach to almost any element of your business, giving you a standardized way to compare across your employee engagement metrics.

Employee turnover rate

What’s the average time someone spends working for your company? Do they progress through the ranks, or do they leave when it’s time for a promotion? Or maybe there’s a trend of employees failing their probation period?

The longer someone stays, the happier they’re likely to be in their working environment.

Tracking turnover not just company-wide, but by department, role, etc. may expose issues you wouldn’t have otherwise discovered.

It could be that some departments have a faster churn rate than others, which can be a sign of a problem within that department instead of the company itself.

Productivity

Disengaged employees are 18% less productive. So, if your employees aren’t hitting their goals, it’s time to dig deeper. 

Managers can’t fix poor productivity levels simply by shouting at employees to work harder. This will lead to more disengagement, and increased absenteeism.

Instead, it’s time to investigate why productivity has gone down. What’s missing? What are employees dissatisfied with? 

You want to ensure employees can have an open and honest dialogue with you about what’s going on in their lives and how it’s affecting their work, whether it’s a personal or professional issue. 

A wide range of things can affect someone’s productivity, and it can continue to deteriorate without the right support. Maybe they need some training, a change in their working environment, or a switch to a new department.

Sometimes all it takes is a short conversation to make employees feel heard. You never know until you ask.

Social media advocacy rates

You’ll never stop employees from using social media during the working day. How you encourage employees to use it, and what they say as a result, will tell you more about your business than you might think.

Employees are 20% more likely to stay at a socially engaged company. They’re also 27% more likely to feel positively about the company’s future.

And, the happier those employees are, the more likely they’ll be to share how they feel online. 

You’ll never get 100% of employees onboard—it’s likely to be around a third—but it only takes a handful of advocates regularly posting to speed up the purchasing process, improve the quality of candidates you attract, and build your employees’ brands within the industry.

Employee advocacy only works if employees are willing to share their honest opinions, and if they’re encouraged to do so. If businesses tell employees to repeat what upper management says, it isn’t advocacy. It’s a loudspeaker designed to draw attention to the business instead of lifting employees up and encouraging them to help their network.

This loudspeaker puts employees off becoming advocates and misses the key part of social media: being social.

Conclusion 

Employee engagement is about so much more than the stats in front of you. It’s about the stories behind those statistics, too. 

You have to dig into the trends and issues behind the statistics to build a thriving and inclusive employee experience.

Engaged employees are a sign of a positive company culture. It’s hard for employees to be happy in their roles and want to stay if they feel dictated to, controlled, or otherwise disconnected from what they’re doing. 

While putting numbers to things with employee engagement metrics makes life simpler on paper, what employees say about your company both on and off the clock matters, too. 

An engaged employee will recommend your company to both customers and future hires. They’ll be happy to spread the word about your business online and offline, attracting more of the right kinds of people and improving time to hire, reducing how long someone takes to make a purchase, and much more.

If you’re looking to supercharge your employee experience and ensure your employee engagement metrics are always just a click away, check out Workrowd. Our automated data collection and customizable dashboards make it easy to see which employee programs and events are driving engagement, and which could use some tweaking. Drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

It’s easy for employees to become disengaged in their roles, especially in the current climate. The world is so unpredictable these days, that it can be difficult for employees to stay focused. This is where communication and employee engagement come in.

Jobs used to be a source of security. Now, though, with ever-changing rules and businesses cutting back or closing, that security is long gone.

This can lead to employees feeling undervalued and/or underperforming on their tasks.

It’s important you take steps to reassure them that you do value them, and want them on the team. Not doing this can lead to losing some of your top performers, increasing the strain caused by the pandemic.

Unfortunately, Gallup suggests that only 33% of people are engaged in their jobs. This has remained true even though the benefits of an engaged workforce have been proven time and time again. Caterpillar, a construction equipment manufacturer, saved $8.8 million annually by reducing absenteeism, attrition rates, and overtime in a European plant. They also increased profits by $2 million and customer satisfaction by 34%.

So what steps can you take to re-engage your employees? Here are some tips that will improve your communication and employee engagement, along with your culture, retention, and more.

Encourage open communication

Businesses talk about open communication a lot, but rarely actually practice it. This means employees won’t share with you what’s going on in their lives that could affect their work. As a result, when someone’s productivity suffers, the default is to punish them instead of supporting them.

When a company has a culture of open communication, employees feel more comfortable sharing their physical or mental health problems, or other situations which may impact their workload.

They’ll also feel more open to giving and receiving feedback, because it’s embedded in the company culture.

It may help to offer some sort of training around feedback and communication to help with this. 

Too often, people assume they’re great at listening, but then talk over the person who’s speaking. Similarly, they may think they’re great at giving feedback but only focus on the negatives. 

A brief training session—or even encouraging everyone to read a blog post on feedback or communication—reinforces that you’re serious about having a culture of open, honest communication. This is a key way in which communication and employee engagement deeply impact each other.

Make accommodations

People’s lives have changed a lot in the last two years because of the pandemic. But many changes have happened outside of Covid-19, too. 

Employees with elderly relatives may have become caregivers, or another employee may have been diagnosed with a chronic health issue. Employees rarely communicate these things to employers. They either don’t know how to talk about it, don’t think their employer will care, or don’t know what their employer can do.

If someone’s situation has changed, making simple accommodations like allowing flexible working or reducing their hours can show that you still value them and you want to support them as they adjust to their new normal.

Make them feel included in decisions

When companies make changes, they often fail to communicate them to employees in the right way (if they communicate them at all).

They simply announce the change to employees out of nowhere. This leaves employees feeling like they’re not valued and that their opinions don’t matter.

It’s impossible to make everyone happy when introducing changes. That said, it’s important to hear everyone’s opinions, even if they won’t change the outcome. 

It isn’t about involving employees in every decision-making process (although if you can include them, they’ll always appreciate it). It’s about giving them the chance to have their voices heard. 

People can get frustrated when it feels like they’re not being listened to. To remedy this, try running a survey, holding a drop-in chat where employees can ask questions, or inviting feedback via email. 

These opportunities for openness and honesty encourage a positive atmosphere within the business, as well as keeping employees engaged. Changing your approach to communication and employee engagement can transform your company culture.

Ask employees what they want out of their roles

In smaller or newer companies, job descriptions can sometimes be flexible or hard to define. Leaders expect early employees to be jacks-of-all-trades, knowing a little about everything. 

As the company expands, new opportunities become available. It’s important you offer these to existing employees as well as external applicants. It may just help you retain someone who’s great at what they do, but who feels disconnected in their current position.

Offer them the chance to retrain

If someone has been with a business for a long time, or their priorities/interests have changed, it can lead to them feeling bored or unstimulated. This can mean their performance goes down, and they may start looking for other opportunities.

However, just because someone is disengaged in that role, it doesn’t mean they’re not worth retaining or that they can’t excel in another position. 

Always make it clear to employees—wherever they are on their journeys—that they can talk to you about moving departments or retraining should they start to feel dissatisfied.

This is particularly important for areas with high turnover or little room for progression, such as customer support. 

If someone has the right mindset and their attitude is a positive influence on the company, see how you can support them, whether that’s through retraining, or helping them to move on by providing a stellar reference. 

As much as you want to, you can’t keep everyone. Offering them support to move on shows them you respect them, and may encourage them to come back in the future.

Host team building activities

Team-building activities are a great way for employees to get to know their colleagues. 

They’re even more important for remote teams, who may not get to bond with their colleagues in the same way that employees who spend every day in an office would.

Encouraging things like quiz nights, hackathons, or book clubs are just some of the ways employees can connect outside of their day-to-day work activities. Increasing interpersonal communication and employee engagement in this way can make all the difference.

Conclusion 

Keeping employees engaged really boils down to one thing: making them feel like they matter. And the simplest way to do that is to listen to them and communicate openly. 

You may not be able to offer a solution to the problem they’re facing, or have an answer for how they’re feeling, but you don’t always have to. To make people feel valued in any situation, it’s all about giving them the chance to feel heard.

If you want to provide more opportunities for employees to communicate both with each other, and with leaders, we invite you to check out Workrowd’s suite of tools. We’ve even streamlined the process of sharing and storing top-down employee communications. Paired with our automated employee engagement surveys, your workplace will have all the tools it needs to thrive. Visit us at workrowd.com or drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com.

Writing an employee engagement newsletter is hard enough. But there’s no guarantee that after all your hard work anyone is actually going to read it. 

Newsletters can play an important part in developing employee engagement and loyalty if done right, though.

So, how do you write an employee engagement newsletter that people will actually read? It’s time to bring out the psychology textbook and throw away your English notes, because great writing of any kind of is the opposite of what you were taught in school…

Don’t write an essay

The only time most of us are taught to write nonfiction is when we’re taught essay writing in school. 

But that writing style just doesn’t cut it in the real world. 

Most people outside of academia don’t read essays for fun. If they do, they’re essays that are relevant to them, fun to read, or—hopefully—both.

That means it’s time to put away the big words, long paragraphs, and formal tone of voice. If you want employees to keep reading, you need to make what they’re reading accessible.

There’s a reason the most widely-read newspapers have an average reading level of an eighth grader. More people can understand them because it requires less brain power to read them, regardless of their level of education.

Reading takes time and energy. You don’t know what the reading skills—or energy levels—are of your employees. 

Giving them something that’s easy to read will make them grateful you’ve put their needs on equal footing with (or even above) what you want to talk about. 

Which means they’re more likely to read what you send them, and to maybe even look forward to your employee engagement newsletter.

Embrace white space

White space is exactly what it sounds like: all the white (empty) space around text, imagery, etc., on a page.

The point of white space is to guide your reader’s eye to focus on particular words or phrases, which is why it’s common in poetry.

If you look back through this post, you’ll notice that many of the paragraphs are only a sentence or two-long. That’s me embracing white space.

Why do I do this?

Because it’s easier for you to read.

Think about the last time you read a really long paragraph, particularly on a small screen like a mobile phone. Your fingers don’t move as much, nor do your eyes. And so your eyes start to get tired. Which makes your brain tired. Which makes you start to get bored. Even if the topic you’re reading about is interesting, a wall of text simply isn’t as accessible to read on a screen. Not to mention it doesn’t look particularly attractive, either—it looks intimidating and makes people want to switch off.

See what I did there?

How far into the paragraph above did you get before your eyes started to twitch or your mind started to wander?

The longer your paragraphs are, the more readers will feel that way.

In the modern age, most attention spans are around eight seconds.

Not to mention reading on screens isn’t exactly pleasant for our eyes.

You want to make sure people’s eyes are constantly moving around the page and their fingers are always scrolling. This will help to keep their brains engaged.

Write in second person

Second person writing uses the pronoun ‘you’ to create a deeper, faster connection between writer and reader. It’s why most blog posts are written in second person.

It also makes readers feel like the content is more relevant to them, since they’re being addressed directly.

Make it relevant to them

Why do you want employees to read your newsletter? What’s the benefit for them? There should be clear benefits to them reading it beyond just ‘we’re sending it to talk about the business’.

If you don’t have anything interesting to say…spend your time writing something else.

Nobody wants to read a newsletter that’s full of bragging or navel gazing. If you’ve had a recent win, by all means share it, but don’t go on and on about it. 

An employee engagement newsletter should be about building rapport and camaraderie. If you’re just doing it to brag about stuff, employees will glance over it and have no interest in reading future installments.

Use humor 

You may feel like you work in an industry that can’t use humor. But stay with me for a minute.

You know why popsicle stick jokes are so bad?

Because we bond over how bad they are.

Comedy itself can be divisive. Everyone has slightly different senses of humor, and, particularly in larger companies, there’s no guarantee everyone will find the same thing funny.

But, if you use humor in the right way, you can deepen engagement and employees’ feelings of loyalty to your brand.

To use comedy the right way, make sure you never, ever make fun of an employee. That’s the kind of comedy that’s divisive and can be harmful. 

And steer clear of controversial topics like politics or religion. 

Instead, think about how you write about something.

Where can you bring in analogies, anecdotes, or comparisons? When did something unexpected happen that you could share?

You could even ask employees to share their funny work or personal stories to make them feel more involved. 

If you want some tips on how to add humor to a business environment, check out David Nihill’s “Do You Talk Funny?”

Be predictable

If employees know when to expect your newsletter, they can carve out time in their day to read it.

If it’s sent intermittently, they’re more likely to be in the middle of something. 

So they’ll plan to read it once they’ve finished what they were doing, but then more stuff gets added to their to-do list, the newsletter gets pushed down their priorities, and eventually it gets forgotten.

Sending your employee engagement newsletter at the same day/time, whether that’s weekly, monthly, bimonthly, or something else, ensures they know when it’s coming up and can factor it into their schedule.

Conclusion 

Writing any newsletter people want to read is easier said than done. That doesn’t make it impossible, though. 

It’s all about changing your perspective to make it about what your employees want/need to know, over what you want to talk about.

At the end of the day, putting employees first is the most important part of building a happy, productive company culture, right? Your internal newsletters can play a big role in that. 

In fact, if done right, they can encourage employees to be more engaged with your business, and maybe even inspire them to write better business communications themselves.

If you’re looking for an easy way to organize and distribute communications like an employee engagement newsletter, Workrowd has you covered.

With our one-stop platform for employee communities, it’s easy to ensure your message reaches the right audience every time. If you’d like to learn more about how we can take your communications sharing to the next level, drop by the homepage or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

When employees can bond over their similarities, the real magic happens. We spend so much time thinking about what makes us different, but the most important information is what we can find in common. For example, employee interest groups help employees connect over shared problems and hobbies.

Today, we will break down fifteen employee interest groups, so your team can find their new best friends at work.

What Is an Employee Interest Group?

First, let’s talk about what an employee interest group is.

Employee interest groups help employees get to know other people at work who share similar interests and hobbies.

As organizations grow to hundreds or thousands of workers, it becomes easy to create a siloed work environment where employees spend very little time outside of their small group of colleagues in their department.

Interest groups encourage employees to work together and build relationships outside of their department.

How Does an Employee Interest Group Differ From an Employee Resource Group?

We often talk about employee resource groups on the Workrowd blog. Is there a difference between an interest group and a resource group? Not necessarily. Most organizations use these words interchangeably when discussing a group of employees who get together to talk about something they have in common.

15 Employee Interest Group Ideas

So, now that you know why interest groups are so important, let’s dive into a few ideas for employee interest groups:

1. Reading

First, you can encourage your employees to start an interest group around reading. Reading is a hobby that many employees have, and it can be a simple way to bond at work. For example, your reading group can host a monthly or quarterly book club where they sit down and chat about the themes addressed in a book.

You can encourage your employees to read something related to work, a holiday like Women’s History Month, or something entirely out of left field.

Books will connect your staff and give them something obvious to talk about, which is key to building bonds between people who don’t know each other.

2. Gardening

If your employees like to get outside, you might want to create a gardening interest group. Gardening is a relaxing activity, and everyone has found unique ideas for making it work for them.

If you want to support your employees and their love of gardening, you could even create a community garden on your company’s campus or rent a space at a local garden for them to tend.

3. Musical Instruments

Have you ever wanted to start a band? You probably already have the musical talent for it in your office. Encourage employees who play musical instruments or sing to come together and have a jam session. Your company might help discover the next big hit!

4. Volunteering

Getting out into the community to volunteer can be a satisfying experience. It can be challenging to make time for volunteering as an adult, though. Creating a volunteering employee interest group can help you introduce great nonprofits to your team and get them out to help the community.

5. Networking

Whether you are looking for your next opportunity or getting to know colleagues, networking is a fantastic skill to hone.

Your organization can create employee interest groups around topics like networking. For example, a networking group might put on a speed dating-style networking event or teach networking skills like active listening and confidence.

6. Parents

Being a new parent or experiencing a new part of parenthood is nerve-wracking. Chances are your organization has a ton of experienced and not-so-experienced parents on staff. Being able to learn and grow with each other creates a positive experience for all your people.

Consider creating a group where parents can come together and share stories, advice, and resources.

7. Location

As your organization grows, you might bring on employees from all over the country, or even farther. Chances are, you’ll start to get a couple of concentrations of people in different cities, states, regions, or time zones. You can easily create interest groups around these specific locations. Then, with those groups in place, you can plan fun in-person events or experiences for employees who live nearby.

8. Job Function

Another type of interest group that becomes more necessary as you expand your team is around job function. For example, you might have hundreds or thousands of sales professionals or engineers. As a team grows, you can see silos crop up even within a department. Encourage these teams to stick together by creating employee interest groups around these roles and job functions.

9. People of Color

An interest group that aligns more with an ERG is a group for the people of color in your company. People of color so often belong to underrepresented groups at work. Interest or resource groups allow people of color to come together, share stories, and seek support from people who have similar experiences.

10. Coworking

If you are a remote or hybrid organization, it can be challenging to find time and space to work together. One interest community you could build is around coworking. When you think of coworking, you might think of companies like WeWork, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Coworking means working in tandem with other people. So, you could create a group that has the sole focus of jumping on a video call and getting some work done at the same time.

11. LGBTQ+ Support

Another employee resource group you might want to create is a group focused on LGBTQ+ support. It can be challenging to be out at work, even in 2022. These support groups can act as a safe space for employees to share their feelings and know that they aren’t alone.

12. Sports

Sports is another great way to bring your team together. These activities are taking place year-round, so there’s always something to watch together.

Here are a few ideas for what to do with a sports interest group:

• Fantasy sports
• Participate in a real sports team at a community center
• Go to a game together

13. Women in X

Back to an ERG idea, you could create a group for women in your company focused on your industry. For example, Women in Tech or Women in Higher Education. Women are underrepresented in a number of sectors, and it’s a good idea to help them connect with and learn from each other.

14. Mentoring

Mentoring is a fantastic way to prepare the next generation of workplace leaders. However, mentoring at work doesn’t necessarily happen on its own. Sometimes organizations have to push to encourage senior leaders to connect with younger employees. Creating a group for mentoring can help you build the infrastructure you need to drive your mentorship program forward.

15. Social Justice

Unfortunately, we live in a pretty unjust society. There always seems to be something to get behind when it comes to social justice initiatives. These issues infiltrate the workplace, even if some companies would like to pretend they don’t.

Creating a social justice interest community can help your team channel their feelings into advocacy for these important causes controlling our country’s discourse.

Conclusion: There Are Many Employee Interest Groups to Create

The ideas for interest communities at work are endless. If you are looking to connect your team, start building out some of these communities online. Encourage employees to join the groups that suit their interests.

Once employees begin participating in these conversations, try getting them to build structure into these groups and support them with funds to take their communities to the next level.

Before you know it, you’ll have bustling workplace communities.

Did you know you can use Workrowd to host your employee interest groups? Our communities make the perfect home base for your ERGs and EIGs. Send us an email at hello@workrowd.com to see if we’re right for your organization.

Having an engaged workforce is essential for companies. One unique way to do that is to challenge your team with fun monthly or quarterly team-building experiences. So how do you come up with fun employee challenge ideas for your organization? Simple, you turn to a list like this one that does the hard work for you.

Keep reading for 15 employee challenge ideas your team can use.

1. Employee Care Packages

One of the first workforce challenge ideas we suggest is sending out employee care packages. Care packages are fun, especially if you have a remote team.

Instead of sending a package for your team, give each team member a budget ($50-$100), a box, and a shipping label. Encourage your employees to send a package to another team member with whom they may not have spent a ton of time. Encourage them to fill the box with fun, local items and ship it to their person.

As boxes arrive, encourage your team to share the boxes in your company’s community (you can use Workrowd for this) and post it on social media. It’s a win for your organization and your employees who get to try new products!

2. Send a Thank You Note

Does the thought of care packages seem a bit spendy to you? You can create a budget-friendly experience for your team by encouraging your employees to send thank you notes to 3-5 employees who have touched their lives. Make this experience unique by creating company-branded thank you notes for your team to use.

3. Drink Water

Water is an essential part of life, but most people need to drink more plain water (even if they get enough water in their diets through other means.) Therefore, encouraging employees to consume the necessary amount of water is a great habit to support.

Try hosting a water challenge to get people to drink the recommended amount of water every day for a month or two. You can even send a branded bottle to help your employees complete this task.

4. Screen Time

As employees continue to work from home, screen time has become a concern.

Whether you use an Android or Apple device, you can track screen time to see where you can cut back.

For this employee challenge idea, get your staff to check out how much time they spend on their phones and help them develop a plan to cut it down. Employees who can reduce screen time by 1-2 hours can expect a fun prize.

5. Book/Movie Club

Reading a book or watching a movie together can create some great experiences with your team. Employee challenge ideas don’t have to be complicated. Pick a shared watch or read and have a chat for 30 minutes to an hour one afternoon.

6. Learning a New Skill

Whether you are a seasoned employee or fresh out of college, learning new skills is essential. Encourage your employees to pick up a new hobby and use a site like Udemy or Skillshare to take a course.

Your organization can give out a small one-time bonus of $50 or so to go out and pick out an exciting class for employees to learn.

7. Get Outside

As temperatures start to cool down in most of the country, consider this employee challenge idea: help your team get outside.

Encourage team members to spend a relaxing evening outside reading a book or playing with their family.

It’s so easy to stay indoors whether you work from home or in an office. Encourage employees to break this cycle and spend time outdoors.

8. Journaling

Sharing your feelings with your colleagues can be challenging, but journaling can have an immensely positive benefit for your team.

Encourage your employees by purchasing nice, branded notebooks. Encourage employees to jot down their feelings, ideas, and wishes in the journals you provide.

You can give a fun prize to the employee who writes the most daily entries in a specific time frame. Just encourage employees to blur out their entries if they contain private information.

9. Walking/Working Out

Employee challenge ideas aren’t easy to come up with. One of the most basic ideas is a walking or working out challenge for your team. Encourage your employees to take a noon walk or work out before work. You could even compile some of your favorite free workout videos on YouTube or get a gym membership for employees for the month to encourage employees to complete this challenge.

10. Family/Friend Time

Workplace challenges don’t have to be complicated. For example, one unique challenge your team can take on is to encourage your employees to spend more time with friends and family throughout the week.

Whether you are eating dinner with your family or watching a movie, time spent with your loved ones and away from work is essential.

Get employees to spend more time with their families for a month. You’ll quickly notice a workplace morale bump.

11. Volunteering

Volunteering at work can have several surprising benefits. Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t taking advantage of the power of volunteer days at work.

Try lining up a few volunteer efforts during one month out of the year. Encourage employees to participate in as many events as they’d like to. Then, after the event is over, encourage employees to share their experiences with the company (or even on social media.)

Before you know it, more employees will be volunteering and enjoying the benefits of volunteer work at your company.

12. Mindfulness/ Meditation

Mindfulness at work can have many positive side effects. Being tense or moody is no way to show up to the office, but some people do so anyway. Teaching employees proper coping techniques can have a net positive effect on your organization.

Establishing a mindfulness practice is easier said than done. It takes time to understand why you are feeling the way you are and take action on it. As an organization leader, you can help employees get in touch with their emotions by leading mindfulness sessions.

13. Habit Building

As we just discussed, it can take a while to build healthy, positive habits. Most employees don’t have the energy to find a routine and stick to it. What if they had an incentive to do so?

Sit down with your employees and create a habit-building challenge. Each employee can come up with the habit they want to build. You can walk them through defining the practice and what activity they want to do daily. From there, you create a longer challenge (at least 60 days because forming a habit can take a while).

14. Networking

Networking is a fundamental part of business success, but most employees don’t network enough after getting a full-time job. On the other hand, networking can be positive for your business and your employee’s future career.

If you want employees to start networking more, make a challenge out of it. Encourage employees to take to LinkedIn or their favorite Slack group to find interesting people in their niche. Requesting a networking call is as simple as sending an inquiry. The only negative outcome would be a ‘no’ from that person.

15. Healthy Sleep

Last but not least, many Americans aren’t getting enough sleep. So one of the best things you can do to encourage better sleep is to make it a challenge.

Encourage employees to track their sleeping habits with their devices or enter the time they are getting. Employees who clock the most nighttime sleep hours can win a fun prize like a new pillow.

Conclusion: Employee Challenge Ideas Your Team Will Love

Are you ready to connect with your team through fun employee challenge ideas? We hope that this article gave you something interesting to think about when planning out your next company challenges.

Workrowd can be a great place to host your workplace challenges. Shoot us an email at hello@workrowd.com to see if we are suitable for your organization.

Coming up with employee appreciation event ideas can be challenging for companies. Whether you are on a tight budget or have some money to spare, we hope this list of event ideas can help you connect with your team.

1. Participate in a Group Volunteer Day

Volunteering can be a stellar experience for employees, but it’s not always easy to make time for this activity. Arranging a group volunteer day might be just what your team needs to help them find time for volunteering.

Here are a few things you can do as a group:

• Clean up a highway or park.
• Pass out meals at a soup kitchen.
• Shop for, put together, and hand out baskets full of toiletries and living essentials for those in need.

But, how can we frame these volunteer days as employee appreciation event ideas? Simple, you can sweeten the deal by playing fun music, rewarding team members who are participating, and even offering paid time off for employees who attend the event.

2. Put On a Food Truck Lunch Event

Sometimes one of the easiest ways to show appreciation for your team is to cater lunch. If your city has food trucks, consider reserving a few of them to cater lunch for your team.

For example, you could host several food trucks and let your employees choose for the day. Alternatively, you could do a Food Truck Friday where you invite a food truck to your company’s office and buy lunch for your team that day.

3. Create a Drink Station

Do you want more employee appreciation event ideas? Try creating a drink station at work. This simple appreciation event helps you show love for your team by supplying them with free drinks from a:

• Coffee bar
• Hot chocolate station
• Lemonade stand

This idea works even better if staff members can customize the drinks in some way. For example, you can make this event even cooler by purchasing customized keepsake cups or mugs.

4. Host an End-of-the-Year Award Ceremony

One of the most traditional employee appreciation event ideas is an end-of-the-year award ceremony. Employees love receiving recognition for the hard work they’ve put in throughout the year; wouldn’t you?

Try putting together a fun event with custom awards, a nice dinner, and lots of time to bond and connect with coworkers. These events make work special for your team members.

5. Throw Events on Company Anniversaries

Did you know that quitting spikes around a person’s work anniversary? It’s one of the three days employees are most likely to quit.

Work anniversaries make your team think about what they’ve accomplished at your organization. Unfortunately, they might find that they don’t like what they see.

It’s your job as an employer to make sure that staff members feel loved and appreciated year-round. But, you should show some extra love by hosting an event or party for workplace anniversaries.

6. Host a Great Speaker

If you’ve been in the corporate world for a while, you know how energizing a great speaker can be.

Show your appreciation for your amazing staff by inviting a captivating speaker to your office and hosting a nice lunch.

If you get a relatively famous speaker, you can even get them to sign autographs or take pictures after the event.

7. Have a Creative Party

Whether you work in a creative field or you work an analytical job, people love getting creative. What’s better than getting creative when there are no expectations about how good or bad your art will be?

Spend some time chatting, listening to music, and bonding as an organization.

Here are a few examples of creative projects you could get your team into:

• Painting
• Jewelry making
• Pottery
• Tie dye
• Lego building

8. Invite Loved Ones to a Family and Friends Day

Who doesn’t love sharing their work with their family and friends? A family and friends day is the perfect way to show your employees how much you care while entertaining their loved ones.

The best family and friends days give your employees’ loved ones a chance to see what they do at work while showing your team how much you care about them.

Try hosting this event as a half day. Family and friends can join the company around lunchtime, take a tour of your office, and see a lunchtime presentation of company awards. After that, you can have a fun afternoon activity for everyone to participate in together.

9. Go to a Game Together

As the fall approaches, fun sports like football and basketball are coming back. Whether you support a high school team or a professional league, going to a game can be fun.

Work with your local sports team to purchase a bunch of seats for your employees. Then, go to the game together dressed in team gear or colors. Before you know it, you and your employees will be having fun together.

Bringing your company together for a fun night on the town isn’t cheap, but it can bring you closer. Make sure that your team members understand that you are doing this because you appreciate the time and energy they put into the company.

10. Host a Talent Show

Employees should be recognized for the talents they have outside of the office, too. When did you last take the time to appreciate your team members for all of their skills and abilities?

Hosting a talent show gives you a chance to highlight all of your employees’ talents, from writing to singing.

You can provide awards for talent show winners like cash, gift cards, or extra time off. Try rewarding employees who are brave enough to step up with a small reward as well, even if they don’t win.

Hosting a talent show should provide lots of entertainment, even if some of your employees are too shy to join. Plus, hosting a talent show shouldn’t cost you a ton of money.

Conclusion: Recognize Your Team With These Employee Appreciation Event Ideas

Your employees deserve recognition. Today’s employee appreciation event ideas should hopefully give you some food for thought around how to celebrate your staff members.

You can create a Workrowd krowd for anything, including planning employee appreciation events. Reach out to us at hello@workrowd.com to see if our product is right for your business.

As we get further into the year, we’re seeing a number of employee engagement trends in 2021. As the mood of the country shifts, organizations should be dedicating time to boosting engagement amongst their employees.

How will you keep staff members excited about continuing to work with your company?

Let’s start by going over the top 8 employee engagement trends you should be thinking about in 2021.

1. Figuring Out How to Work With Remote/Hybrid Workforces

First, let’s discuss hybrid and remote work. Engaging a workforce that’s located all over the country (or the world) can be difficult.

As an organization leader, your job should be finding ways to improve work relationships in and outside of the office.

Remote workers want to feel involved, even as your office reopens. Make sure you take the time to ensure all employees feel valued, even if you see certain employees more often.

2. Having Compassion for Caretakers

Caretakers have gone through a great deal as the pandemic rages on.

For example, working parents have been dealing with a lot of issues. One instance of this is that many schools that have gone back to in-person education have sent students and teachers home sick.

Currently, caretakers are facing a lot of stress and flux in and outside of the workplace.

To keep employees engaged, managers need to have empathy and concern for employees in charge of caretaking. Compassion is such an important behavior as your workers may live a different life than you.

3. Focusing on Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity & inclusion continues to be an important part of workplace culture. One of the most diverse generations, Gen Z, is starting to become a larger part of the workplace conversation.

As these employees join your team, take on leadership positions, and excel at work, your organization needs to keep up with these workers. For example, you might want to read up on becoming an ally in the workplace or empowering your managers to drive DEI.

Whatever you can do to research and make new employees feel welcome is great for your business.

4. Understanding Recognition in the Workplace

If you’ve been keeping up with HR news, you might have heard of The Great Resignation. Employees are feeling discontented, and they are ready to move on to bigger and better career opportunities.

Employees want to feel supported and appreciated by managers and colleagues. One of the best ways to do this is to recognize staff members for their hard work.

Many organizations spend hours planning grand end-of-the-year ceremonies to recognize staff. Instead of focusing on one large event, spend time recognizing employees for all of the small things they do for your team.

5. Supporting Employee Health

It’s no surprise that health is so essential for staff members in 2021. COVID-19 has been impacting us for well over a year, and it has shown no signs of stopping.

Employers who invest in their staff members’ physical and mental health are showing employees how much they care.

Focus on providing all of the important health benefits like insurance and sick days. You can also listen to employee concerns on things like returning to the office or having company get-togethers. Employees need to feel like their opinions matter right now.

6. Hosting an Employee Engagement Survey

Speaking of validating employee opinions, consider hosting an employee engagement survey like the Gallup Q12.

With so much happening worldwide, it’s important to catch up with what your employees are thinking (while you can still work to fix things with them.)

Employers have spent so much of the last year putting out fires at work. Now, employers need to move on to preventative measures, so they aren’t always going from one emergency to the next. When is the last time you preemptively asked an employee how they were doing? If you can’t remember, now is the time.

7. Taking a New Look at Employee Compensation

As employees move to different states and work from places that excite them, organizations need to look at compensation.

How do you plan to handle payments when some of your staff live in cheaper places? Some companies have decided to pay some employees less, but that isn’t always the right answer.

As an organization leader, you have to make sure that compensation feels fair and competitive with similar organizations in your industry.

Spend some time connecting with other managers and staff members. Should location impact worker compensation? What would happen if everyone got paid the same amount? How would remote workers feel if they got paid less?

Employers need to have a full picture of how pay impacts work before deciding on compensation changes.

8. Producing an Internal Communication Plan

Internal communication is an essential building block of a successfully engaged hybrid team. Your employees need to know when to use different communication tools and how/when they can expect information from leadership.

Take some time to decide which communication tools you intend to use and what purpose they serve. For example, you could use a tool like Workrowd to host all of your employee resource groups. Go through all of your tools and describe when their use is appropriate.

As teams become more dispersed, tools like company newsletters become even more essential. If this is an engagement technique you want to use, it takes time to plan and execute.

Overall, you want to make sure that everyone knows what they can expect from leaders daily/weekly/monthly/etc. If you aren’t sure, it’s time to sit down and produce a plan that everyone on your team can follow.

Following Employee Engagement Trends in 2021

Employee engagement is an ever-changing field. Every year new trends emerge based on what’s happening inside and outside of the workplace. Leaders need to keep up with these trends so that employees feel engaged and ready to work.

The cost of disengaged employees can be astronomical, and organizations thrive when more staff members are excited to work every day. Are you looking for a simple way to improve engagement? Consider an employee engagement program.

While you are thinking about employee engagement trends for 2021, you can consider a tool like Workrowd to help you host your first employee resource group. Send us an email at hello@workrowd.com to see if we are right for your team.

As members of Generation Z grow older, it’s important to think about how they’ll fit in at work. Creating a Gen Z employee engagement strategy is a great first step to making space for these employees. Today, we will talk about the dos and don’ts of making Gen Z feel like part of your work family.

Generation Z Basics

If we want to understand the dos and don’ts of Gen Z employee engagement, we have to understand the basics of who Gen Z is.

There has been quite a bit of research into who Gen Z is, but keep in mind that these ideas are subject to change. Many members of Gen Z are still in school and shaping their personal beliefs as we speak. For example, many Gen Z-ers are growing up during a global pandemic, which is sure to change how they think about the world. We couldn’t have predicted they’d go through this challenging time even a few years back.

Here are some fast facts so you understand the group we are talking about:

• Generation Z started with those born in 1997. This means that the oldest Gen Z members are just 24 years old.
• Gen Z is one of the most diverse generations to date in the United States.
• They grew up when computers and technology were more widely available, especially for the youngest members of Gen Z.
• Gen Z is well-educated as they are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to go to college than previous generations.

Gen Z Employee Engagement Dos and Don’ts

With the basics out of the way, let’s talk about some of the ways that you can engage this next generation of employees:

Do: Create a Transparent Workplace

Generation Z enjoys transparency from brands they frequent. It’s not a stretch to guess that Gen Z employees want their workplaces to be equally honest. Transparency is essential because it helps employees trust the organizations they spend so much of their time and energy on.

Here are some ways to create transparency at work:

• Start an internal newsletter to let employees know what’s happening in the company.
• Create a weekly team meeting to discuss company issues and solutions.
• Build a dashboard using your sales software to keep employees in the loop about numbers.

Don’t: Forget About Diversity & Inclusion

As discussed earlier, Gen Z will be one of the most diverse generations to date, especially in the United States. You shouldn’t forget about creating a truly diverse and inclusive workplace. Read up on some resources to become a better ally or think about empowering managers to drive diversity/inclusion. Both of these ideas will help drive your Gen Z employee engagement program.

Do: Create Mentorships to Improve Gen Z Leadership

Many Baby Boomers will be retiring (or reaching retirement age) soon. We have to prepare younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z for this workplace transition. Mentorship programs can be a fantastic way to engage Gen Z employees while helping pass down some of the knowledge older employees have gained.

As new employees join your organization, pair them up with a more seasoned buddy (preferably someone outside their department.) It’s so important for younger adults to have a breadth of friendships within the organization.

Don’t: Let Your Employees Go Too Long Without Feedback

Feedback is an integral part of the employee experience. Young employees need even more feedback because they don’t have a lot of experience. Your feedback can guide their career trajectories and ensure they are on the right path.

Make sure you put a reminder on your calendar to give feedback to your Gen Z employees often so they understand what an asset they are to your organization.

Do: Focus On Providing Great Financial Incentives

Let’s face it: many Gen Z staff members are entering the workforce during an unprecedented time. There has been so much going on in the world with layoffs and unemployment. Getting a job in this economy is great, and we have a duty as employers to be fair to our employees.

Providing financial incentives like health insurance, tuition reimbursement, student loan payoffs, help with moving expenses, etc., can really help your younger employees feel appreciated.

Don’t: Keep Employees in a Box at Work

Gen Z employees are just getting started with their careers, so don’t put them in a box. Moving up the corporate ladder might not be possible for Gen Z employees right now, but they can always make lateral career moves.

Let Gen Z workers explore and test the bounds of your organization. Moving to a different department, creating a unique role that includes all of their interests, or staying put/moving up or down in their current department are all equally possible moves for any worker.

Do: Build a Workplace Based on Values

Values drive organizational success. Most organizations have a set of values that inform the work they do. Gen Z needs to see that from you. Work on establishing a set of values that guide what you do at your company. Make sure that employees understand and live by the same set of values the organization holds dear. Before you know it, you’ll have a workplace where younger generations can thrive.

Don’t: Skimp on Technology

Last but not least, don’t skimp on technology. Generation Z grew up using technology almost every day. Many members of this group grew up with tablets, laptops, and phones nearby. Make sure that technology is a part of everything from hiring to firing.

For example, you could use a tool like Workrowd to create workplace communities and connect employees across your organization. Workplace communities are essential to keeping your employees connected around common objectives and interests.

Conclusion: You Can Keep Gen Z Engaged

Gen Z employee engagement isn’t as challenging as you think. Genuine care and appreciation for these bright and diverse individuals can speak volumes to new hires. By following the dos and don’ts highlighted in today’s article, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a great place to work.

Are you interested in seeing if Workrowd can help you with your Gen Z employee engagement strategy? Send us an email at hello@workrowd.com to find out.