Category: Employee Engagement

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

What Is Team Engagement?

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

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

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

8 Team Engagement Ideas to Get You Started

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

1. Make Sure Your Employees Are in Jobs They Love

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

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

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

2. Provide Flexible Work Opportunities for Employees

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

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

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

3. Include Team Building Activities in Your Corporate Culture

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

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

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

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

4. Provide Team-Centered Professional Development Opportunities

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

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

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

5. Invest Energy in a New Product or Service

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

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

6. Create a Stellar Employee Resource Group Experience

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

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

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

7. Promote the Best Company Leaders

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

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

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

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

8. Utilize Employee Engagement Surveys to Uncover Trends

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

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

Conclusion: Team Engagement Is Essential

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

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

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

1) Examine Your Company’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) Host an Employee Care Package Exchange

Everyone loves a fun care package.

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

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

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

5) Make Sure Your Time Off Program Serves Your Staff

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

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

Ask yourself these questions:

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

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

6) Change Your Community by Investing in Volunteerism

Volunteering can be a great way to engage employees.

Many community organizations could use your company’s support.

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

7) Build Exciting Employee Resource Groups

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

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

8) Share the Love by Giving Public Praise

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

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

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

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

9) Create a Stellar Employee Mentorship Program

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Employee Engagement Program Takeaways

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

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

If there’s one thing we can all agree on about the COVID-19 crisis, it’s that it irrevocably changed the world of work. By digitalizing so many aspects of the workday virtually overnight, the pandemic also transformed employees’ needs and expectations. Pile on to this the amount of stress, grief, and trauma everyone has suffered over the past 12+ months, and we’re staring down a vastly different talent landscape than at this time last year. As the economy begins to rebound, employers will have to rise to the occasion and transform the way they drive engagement in order to attract and retain the best talent.

While there continue to be a multitude of different engagement drivers that impact the employee experience, there are a few key elements that are newly crucial in 2021. If you want to ensure that you’re meeting employee needs regardless of whether your team members are returning to the office, remaining remote, or doing a mix of both, you have to be prepared to address new concerns in the aftermath of the pandemic. Read on to learn more about engagement drivers and what you can do to ensure your team members remain engaged now and into the future.

What are engagement drivers and why are they so important

Engagement drivers are the key aspects of your workplace that make employees love working there. These can range from physical elements including having a comfortable workspace, to emotional elements including feeling respected and valued, to technological elements including having the tools and access needed to succeed. Engagement drivers, or the lack thereof, form a big part of why employees choose to stay with their organization year after year, or why they decide to move on to another employer. At their best, they provide a strong framework for a positive employee experience. At their worst though, they’re superficial incentives that are misaligned with employees’ actual wants and needs, draining both the business and team members alike.

For many years pre-pandemic, companies invested in fun perks such as gaming tables in the office, free food and drinks, and parties, believing that they were central to employee engagement. Unfortunately, if you subscribe to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you’ll find that these efforts barely scratch the surface of what actually motivates people. With so much emphasis on ineffective engagement drivers, it’s no surprise that employee engagement levels failed to exceed 35% at any point in the years leading up to 2020. When employers started actually paying attention to employees’ health and safety, need for remote work options, and more at the beginning of the pandemic, engagement shot up to 40% for the first time ever, only to drop back down to where it had been as companies began to shift focus back away from employee support and wellbeing. If your company wants to reap the far-reaching benefits of an engaged workforce across retention, productivity, and more, it’s important to invest in engagement drivers that actually make a difference.

What engagement drivers matter most to employees in 2021

With so much upheaval over the past year, employees’ approach to work and life has changed. People have changed. The world has changed. Accordingly, employers would be extremely shortsighted to not similarly change their approach to engagement. Here are the top broad areas companies should be targeting this year to ensure they’re investing in effective engagement drivers, rather than superficial and/or outdated ones:

1. Autonomy and flexibility. Employees want to feel trusted and empowered by their employer, not monitored and micromanaged. Much has been written about the negative effects of surveilling employees, including its impact on engagement. Employers that assume their employees will slack off without the oversight provided by an office environment demonstrate that they would rather invest in tools to make their employees more robot-like, rather than investing in actual human beings. Similarly, employees have other things going on in their lives beyond just work. They want to know that they can live their lives in addition to and alongside being high-performing team members, which means they’ll be considerably more engaged if you provide them the flexibility to work where, when, and how is best for them. Focus on making the workplace fit the employee, rather than the other way around.
2. Digitalization and accessibility. Orient your systems and processes around usability and ease of access, and watch your engagement numbers skyrocket. Employees want to be empowered to do their best work, and then be able to disconnect and enjoy their non-work time. They don’t want to be aggravated by a tangle of systems or constantly struggling to find the information they need. After the whirlwind of the past year, it may be time to step back and take a holistic look at your technology and collaboration ecosystem and ensure that it’s optimized to provide employees a positive experience. Do you have 4 different instant messaging apps employees have to check on an ongoing basis in addition to their email? This may be contributing to disengagement as stress compounds with each message that arrives.
3. Equity and inclusion. In addition to the pandemic, the past year has seen a reckoning with diversity and inclusion on a scale that hasn’t been reached in decades. Today, three out of four jobseekers say that the diversity of a potential employer’s workforce is important to them when evaluating opportunities. It has been an emotionally exhausting year, even more so for folx from underrepresented backgrounds whose communities continue to bear the brunt of the dual epidemics of COVID-19 and institutional racism and violence. Employees don’t want to come to work and see and experience exclusion and microaggressions. They want to work for employers whose values align with their own. Investing in making your employees feel heard, welcomed, and valued is a crucial, and too often overlooked engagement driver.
4. Connection and wellbeing. The past year has also brought the fragility of good health into stark relief. Watching young, healthy, able-bodied people succumb to the coronavirus in a matter of days has reminded us all that our health is not something to be taken for granted. Neither is the company of good friends and colleagues. Offering usable wellness benefits, making time and space for bonding with coworkers, and other efforts that promote connection and wellbeing will go a long way towards ensuring your employees want to work their hardest for your company.
5. Rewards and recognition. Last but certainly not least, employees want to be acknowledged for the value they bring to the organization. Let them know you appreciate them through shout-outs, bonuses, and other incentives and you’ll be paid back in increasing engagement levels. Employees are working more hours than ever, all while juggling myriad personal responsibilities and challenges, so don’t let their work go unrecognized. Make sure that managers are acknowledging their team members for jobs well done, and if you can spare the cost of a gift card here and there, remember that that could make a big difference for an employee who may have experienced changes in household income or who just needs a pick-me-up. Recognition, when delivered in ways that matter to the individual employee, is a critical engagement driver that should be a key part of every company’s strategy.

Identifying engagement drivers and effectively targeting them has been an ongoing struggle for many employers. We can make 2021 the year that changes. By following the tips above and incorporating the right systems and tools, you can hone in on the most important engagement drivers for your workforce, and significantly improve your employee experience. If you’re considering bringing in software tools to assist you in this process, we encourage you to check out Workrowd, the all-in-one platform for managing employee engagement and company culture across both on-site and remote workers. As you’re researching, don’t forget to check out the Global ERG Network as well, and feel free to reach out to us at any time to learn more or just to chat at hello@workrowd.com.

As usual around this time of year, there are a lot of articles out there predicting the big areas where HR needs to focus its efforts this year. Infinite mentions of remote working, company culture, wellbeing, and so on have flooded blogs and news outlets. Ultimately though, while there are a lot of new things HR will have to contend with this year, from vaccine compliance to returns to the office, employee engagement has remained a pretty unyielding opponent.

While engagement did see a brief bump around the start of the pandemic as many employers stepped up their efforts amidst employees transitioning to working from home, it dropped back down to standard levels within a few months. The percentage of employees who are engaged has been simmering between the mid-20s and mid-30s for decades now; having only a quarter to a third of employees engaged costs U.S. companies hundreds of billions of dollars per year. As we dive deeper into what people insist on calling ‘the new normal’, it’s time to imagine a new normal for employee engagement levels as well.

Historical reasons for employee disengagement

Disengagement stems from a number of different sources, some of which can be influenced by employers, while others are simply a matter of preference. For instance, if an employee has little to no interest in what they do, or considers their job simply a necessary evil, few efforts by the employer will make a substantive difference. On the other hand, for employees who do care in some regard about their work, having an employer show that they care in return can go a long way toward boosting engagement.

Some of the ongoing issues that drive disengagement include:

1. Toxic managers. According to SHRM, 6 out of 10 employees say that their manager is the reason they left their organization. Managers who are unclear, unkind, or otherwise demotivating play a key role in driving disengagement. Improving your manager training programs can help turn this problem around.  Efforts could focus on strengthening communication, increasing feedback, and boosting recognition to start.
2. Dead-end roles. Failing to provide learning and development opportunities and/or career ladders is a grave mistake in today’s economy. Employees with no incentive to try their best, and no vision of their future with the organization, are at extremely high risk of disengagement and turnover. Ensure that your team members understand how they can grow with the company, and offer ways to expand and improve their skills.
3. Insufficient compensation. Employees who aren’t compensated adequately with salary, benefits, and company culture are unlikely to be engaged. Not receiving sufficient rewards for the time and effort they expend on the company’s behalf will only lead to resentment and retention issues. Even if you can’t provide as compelling of a compensation package as some competitors, you can make up for it in other ways through wellbeing support and a positive work environment.

New concerns that will impact employee engagement this year

While the usual suspects will undoubtedly continue to stymie efforts to increase employee engagement in 2021, there are also a few new potential culprits on the scene. Due to the pandemic and all of the issues that accompany it, both employees and employers are facing some serious new challenges. Among them:

1. Health & safety. More than any other time in recent history, employers across industries will have to make serious accommodations within their workplaces to ensure the health and safety of all employees. Between requiring mask wearing and social distancing, adequately sanitizing surfaces, executing contact tracing and office shutdowns, etc., there’s a lot to consider. Ultimately though, no employee will remain loyal and engaged while working for an employer that doesn’t prioritize their health and safety. Make sure you have clear policies in place, stay up-to-date on all recommendations, and ask your employees early and often how you can make them feel more comfortable and protected amidst the ongoing public health crisis.
2. Burnout & PTO. Burnout is a serious concern for employees who have been under outsize amounts of stress and working longer hours than ever with no vacations to look forward to during the past year. Ensuring that employees are able to take time off when they need it, and that they have the supports they need in the face of escalating household responsibilities combined with increased work expectations will be critical to keeping employees happy and refreshed. Consider implementing mandatory minimums for paid time off, and step up your benefits around child and elder care, as well as healthcare and sick time.
3. Flexible working. Not everyone will be comfortable or ready to go back to the office at the same time. Between the staggered vaccine rollout, different family structures, and varied perspectives on virus safety itself, employees will need a menu of options to ensure they feel respected and supported through any office return process. Employees forced to return under conditions that make them feel rushed and/or anxious will not be able to focus on their work and will be much more likely to leave. Additionally, not enabling employees to work schedules that are conducive to meeting their new responsibilities due to the pandemic will further reduce engagement.

A ‘new normal’ requires a new approach to employee engagement. There are many new issues and concerns to take into account when mapping out an employee engagement strategy for 2021. We’ve listed some of them above, but as always, it’s crucial that you solicit input from your employees early and often. If you could use a better way to poll employees, keep everyone on the same page, and strengthen company culture no matter where employees work, come visit us at workrowd.com or reach out directly to hello@workrowd.com.

We made it. It’s the last week of the year that felt as if it would never end. While ringing in a new year is purely symbolic in a lot of respects – it’s not as if a global switch will flip at midnight and all aspects of our previous existence will be restored – there’s still a lot to look forward to in 2021. People are getting vaccinated against COVID-19, so hopefully there is a light at the end of this tunnel of death and economic devastation. A new administration is entering the White House, which will bring changes along with it (for better or worse, depending on your perspective). Plus it never hurts to be rounding the corner on winter and knowing that the days will only begin to get longer from here on out.

The change in year also offers new opportunities to engage your employees after an extremely difficult 2020. Making a resolution to improve your employee experience, cultivate stronger relationships between team members, and move the needle on diversity, equity, and inclusion can only have positive outcomes for your organization. With that in mind, we’ve assembled some high-level suggestions for starting the new year off on the right foot with employees and setting your company up for success in 2021.

The events of 2020 significantly impacted employee engagement

Contrary to what many would have expected, employee engagement actually increased during the beginning of the pandemic. Quantum Workplace found that employee engagement grew meaningfully at 73% of organizations during the early days of wide-scale remote working. Over the preceding decade, engagement had only shifted by a total of one or two percentage points in either direction, but during the spring of this year it jumped up by 11%. Much of this stemmed from companies making an effort to prioritize employee safety and well-being, being flexible and offering concessions to help team members make the best of a stressful situation, and successfully implementing work from home options that many employees had been requesting for years.

Unfortunately, as the pandemic has dragged on, and amidst heightened racial tensions and election-related stress, employee engagement levels have slumped back to their pre-COVID rates. Many companies have had to make staffing cuts and/or scale back on employee perks, and as we wrote about last week, the amount of time off being taken has plummeted at a lot of organizations. Furthermore, the downsides of working from home, including the lack of colleague interaction plus juggling household tasks at the same time as professional responsibilities, have begun to wear on employees. In fact, 75% of workers who participated in a recent study reported experiencing burnout; 40% of them directly attributed this sentiment to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s important for employers to address this issue in order to start their organization off on the right foot in the new year.

Ways to ensure your employees start the year off engaged and stay that way

There is no downside to making a hard commitment to increase employee engagement in 2021. Employee engagement boosts productivity, retention, and makes for happier workers, among other benefits. Workplaces as a whole have struggled to increase employee engagement for decades, but now in the new world order foisted upon us by the novel coronavirus, there exists an opportunity to reimagine how we approach this issue and finally move the needle. We’ve assembled a few suggestions to get you started below:

• Involve your employees. Employee engagement efforts have traditionally been top-down, and often focused on one-off events or in-office perks such as catered meals or hangout spaces. Ultimately though, whether or not these offerings were effective, times have changed and the way organizations do things needs to change as well. Don’t try to guess what to do though; ask your employees what they need and what would make them happier in their jobs. Gather a committee comprised of team members from different departments to weigh in on an ongoing basis and support your initiatives.
• Be flexible. Employees have been through a lot this year, but everyone’s experience has been different. Strive to learn more about your team members as individual humans, and ensure that you’re making an effort to meet employees where they’re currently at to address any big issues or needs. Provide options to suit different schedules and lifestyles, and check in frequently to see what is and isn’t working.
• Go all in on inclusion. Despite all the discussion about it, there’s been little progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion in most workplaces. It’s well past time for that to change. Explore new ways to drive inclusion within your company; supercharge your employee resource groups; expand education and sharing efforts; model inclusion from the top down; and make sure that every person in the company understands that driving inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.

There are few better investments you can make in 2021 than designing and implementing a strong strategy to increase employee engagement. If you’re in the market for new tools to help support your efforts, come visit us at workrowd.com. Not only do we offer our core software platform to help you organize, promote, manage, and measure all your employee initiatives in one place, but we also have the Global ERG Network available to help you level up your employee resource groups. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com.

Now that you’ve skipped your annual office Thanksgiving potluck, or moved everything to Zoom, the time has come to decide how to mark the December holidays amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, the typical work holiday party is off the table this year (unless you’re wholly unconcerned about endangering your employees and their families). With so many hallmarks of the season in high-risk territory due to potential virus exposure, it may seem easier to just push things off until next year. As employees continue to struggle with anxiety and burnout though, the need for employee initiatives and engagement efforts has never been higher. How do you safely celebrate with your employees this year in a way that’s authentic, fun, and effective?

We know it’s been a difficult year and many are facing budget cuts in addition to the ongoing restrictions. You may be burnt out yourself and the prospect of planning something for employees on top of all the end of year tasks may feel like too much to shoulder. We hear you. Knowing how crucial connection and camaraderie are to the employee experience though, even for HR professionals, we’ve assembled a short list of ways to honor your traditions, acknowledge employees for their hard work, and still keep everyone safe and healthy, including yourself.

Set yourself up for success with strong planning & follow-up

As with many things, a great deal of event success hinges upon having a strong plan in the lead-up, and a strong follow-up game in the aftermath. Start your planning by consulting employees. Unless you’ve conducted surveys after your work holiday party in years past, you likely only have guesses as to what employees did and didn’t like about previous events. Perhaps they weren’t wowed by the entertainment you brought in and just enjoyed spending time with their coworkers. More importantly, a lot of what was relevant to employees last year may be different now after the year we’ve all had. Accordingly, start by asking your employees how they would prefer to acknowledge the holidays this year in a company context. Get their input first to ensure that whatever you plan hits the mark.

Don’t stop after the initial outreach, either. If you have follow-up questions after the first employee survey, don’t hesitate to ask people for their thoughts. Just as consultants may check in frequently with clients to ensure the project is proceeding to their liking, whoever is in charge of events for your company should regularly solicit employee input. Similarly, feedback after the fact is crucial, too. Make your follow-up plan before the event, so you can deploy it in a timely fashion. Employees need to feel engaged in the process in order to remain bought in to the event and interested in attending, so ensure you’re giving your team what they need through polls and conversations.

Ideas for COVID-safe holiday celebrations

While asking your employees how they would like to mark the holidays this year is one of the most important steps you can take, we’ve assembled a few ideas to help inform your process:

• Organize a virtual team activity. In response to the urgent need for social distancing brought on by the pandemic, many event and activity providers have transitioned their offerings to a virtual format. This includes everything from murder mysteries and escape rooms to tasting parties and cooking classes. If bringing in the professionals isn’t in your budget, you could instead host a virtual game night, talent show, or other event that gets everyone involved and having fun.
• Send out some DIY cheer. Consider sending employees activity kits to work on either together or alone. This could include decoration boxes (ideally non-denominational) where everyone decorates their workspace or other area and comes together on Zoom to compare (or even compete!). Alternatively, cooking or painting kits that everyone can use while on video chat can be a fun way to get your people engaging with each other in a non-work way. Even if you just send some treats to say thank you for their hard work, such as snacks, sweets, relaxation boxes, etc., it will help to at least acknowledge that you’re thinking of them and their wellbeing at this difficult time of year.
• Give back to your community. Volunteers and donations are needed more than ever this year, as so many individuals and families have experienced dramatic losses in income and stability in recent months. Bringing your team together for some virtual volunteering, running a charity drive, and/or matching donations can help your team reconnect with what’s important, and feel good about the fact that they work for a company that prioritizes more than just the bottom line.
• Create a ‘choose your own adventure’ day. The authenticity and flexibility of employee-led events might be just what the doctor ordered this year (besides social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing). Empowering employees with the tools and budgets to run events for their colleagues gives you the ability to offer a variety of options for people to engage with their coworkers without the stress and overhead of one person or team trying to manage everything. Ask for employee suggestions, and enable them to lead activities, learning sessions, or other events for their fellow team members.

Planning for the holidays this year is undoubtedly more difficult and complicated than usual, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything. Ask your employees what would be meaningful to them; it may be the case that staff would prefer to just have a bit of extra pay rather than any sort of event or work holiday party as some may have seen reductions in household income. If your team does express interest in events and other ways to bond with colleagues, Workrowd can help. Visit us at workrowd.com to learn more about our employee empowerment model, or drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to hear from you.

There’s no denying it at this point; social distancing is here to stay. So what do you do when your employees are back in the office, but all the employee engagement ideas you used to rely on – happy hours, group lunches, office amenities – are off the table? Although these activities and benefits have long been mainstays of most companies’ engagement efforts, they are ultimately only superficial strategies. Especially during these difficult and confusing times when employees are dealing with so much in addition to work, the focus of engagement efforts should be on supporting your team with compassion and empathy. Companies that do will reap the benefits for years to come.

Reframing How You Practice Engagement

The first step towards keeping engagement high while distancing measures are still in place is to stop thinking of engagement in the classical way. Just like inclusion can’t be developed through a once yearly unconscious bias training, true engagement does not stem from foosball tables or holiday parties. While these are great bonuses, true engagement comes from employees feeling seen, heard, and appreciated at their companies. Stop approaching it as if you can bribe your employees into being engaged; buying things like snacks and games as a substitute for actually investing in your employees is not going to work. Engagement is something that is built not bought.

Accordingly, think about what has made your own experience at companies better or worse. Were you motivated to work harder for the company that brought in lunch once per month, or the company where you felt genuinely supported and valued for your contributions? Employees need to know that their employer cares about them every day, not just when there’s a special event, so engagement initiatives have to be ongoing rather than one-offs. Begin thinking about employee engagement ideas as part of an integrated strategy and you’ll be in a much better position to serve your employees regardless of whether they’re in-office or remote, mid or post-pandemic.

Strategies and Activities for Boosting Engagement

Now that you’ve got a new framework for how to approach building engagement, it’s time to start designing your strategy. Some key requirement to keep in mind include:

• Ensure your employees have what they need. While it’s frequently overlooked as a component of engagement, the foundation of your program should be making sure employees have the knowledge, tools, and support to succeed at your company. Employees who don’t know where to go if they have a question, who don’t have a clear understanding of expectations, and/or who don’t have the necessary tools to perform their jobs well won’t be helped by any of your other attempts to boost engagement. If you have team members who aren’t empowered, who don’t see a path for themselves at your organization, and who don’t feel valued, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to overcome those challenges. Start here, then build your strategy once you’ve got employees’ basic needs squared away. This step is especially critical during the pandemic.
• Open the lines of communication. Another key engagement strategy is to make sure employees feel that they have a voice. If employees know that they can express concerns or new ideas freely and with the expectation that they’ll be listened to, they’ll feel valued and therefore much more likely to be engaged. Utilize different communication channels to provide both extro- and introverted employees with ways to participate. This may include surveys, anonymous suggestion boxes, focus groups, town hall-style meetings, and more, but most importantly hinges on managers making sure they actually connect with and listen to their team members. Foster a culture of open communication at all levels and watch your engagement scores increase.
• Supercharge your employee groups. Last but certainly not least, build community within your employee population. A Gallup study showed that employees with even one close friendship at work were seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs. Initiatives such as employee resource groups, rec sports leagues, professional development clubs, and so on go a long way towards helping your employees build the relationships and support networks they need to foster strong positive associations with coming to work. Make it easy for your people to find their niche within your company, and bond with those who share their interests and/or life experiences. Your bottom line will thank you as these connections will improve collaboration and communication across your organization, in addition to increasing engagement, productivity, retention, and more.

We know it can be daunting to try to crack the code and come up with effective employee engagement ideas during such confusing and stressful times. If you could use some support from tools to resources to metrics, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to learn more about what you’re struggling with so we can determine how to best help. No one should have to walk this uncertain road ahead alone.

The conversation around finding purpose at work is not new. For decades now, experts have stressed the importance of building meaning into employees’ days in order to drive business outcomes. Those organizations that heeded the calls have reaped the benefits. A study of hundreds of companies’ stock prices found that the organizations that scored highly on purpose and clarity from management performed much better than their peers. On the flip side, 70% of executives at companies where purpose at work is not a key driver say that employees’ desire for it is impacting HR’s ability to recruit and retain top talent.

As the pandemic continues to revolutionize how we approach work and life, employee attitudes are changing. Pre-pandemic estimates show that 9 out of 10 of people would take a pay cut in exchange for more meaning at work. The fear and stress we’ve all experienced in recent months will likely shift the balance of pay and purpose even further. Similarly, the expectations on employers will continue to grow as employees seek support and flexibility in the prolonged aftermath of this trauma. Companies must be prepared to rise to the occasion, or risk losing their star players at the first sign of regained economic stability.

What does this look like in practice, though? It’s likely that part of the reason so few companies have succeeded in building a purpose-driven workplace is that there isn’t a clear roadmap for developing meaning for employees. Accordingly, we’ve reviewed the research and summarized some of the key steps to building meaning for your team below:

• Help employees to see the big picture, and how their work contributes to it
  • As humans, we always want to feel that we matter. No one enjoys just being a cog in the wheel. From the first point of contact with a potential employee through offboarding and beyond, ensure that every individual understands the company’s goals and how their work fits in. Help them feel valued through regular feedback, recognition for a job well done, and ongoing communication to keep them up-to-date.
• Cultivate trust through transparency and empowerment
  • Whether mistrust flows from employee to managers, and/or the other way around, these dynamics make it impossible to build a strong organization grounded in meaning. While trust can be difficult to cultivate, one key step a company can take is to train managers to empower employees. If your staff feel that they are trusted to do their best rather than being micromanaged or suspected of slacking, the majority will rise to the occasion and gain a sense of purpose from it. Similarly, if you are open and communicative, your people will feel that they are truly a part of something larger than themselves, giving meaning to their work.
• Opportunities to grow and leverage their strengths
  • In order to gain meaning and purpose, employees must have the chance to grow as people. By providing clear career paths, opportunities for learning and upskilling, and new projects for people to engage with, you leave your team no reason to look for alternative employment. They will be excited to learn and expand their skillsets, and will feel positively towards your company as a result.
• Respect that they’re whole people, and provide benefits tailored to their lives
  • If the myriad interrupted video calls over the past few months have taught us nothing else, it’s that people have full lives outside of work with children, family members, pets, and friends, all with individual needs. Now that we’ve learned so much about each other, don’t leave that information at the door to the office upon reentry. Leverage that knowledge to ensure your employees feel valued and supported as whole people, through work hour flexibility, an expanded menu of benefit options, and wellness support for the whole household.
• Chances to connect
  • Last but most certainly not least, in order to feel a sense of purpose and engagement at work, people need to care and be cared about by the people around them. Give your team ample opportunity to connect with each other and build the relationships that will keep them employed by your company for years to come. One of the key reasons that people report staying with an organization is getting to work with great people every day. Plan events to help employees build community, provide digital spaces in which they can interact, and encourage socializing, rather than worrying about it. You’ll see it pay off across retention, engagement, and productivity.

These are the top strategies we’ve found to help your organization drive purpose and meaning for your team as we begin to emerge from this first (and hopefully worst) wave of the pandemic. Take this opportunity to reimagine your workplace for the better. If you’re looking for new tools to help your people connect, increase transparency and communication, and provide a seamless employee experience, come see us at workrowd.com or reach out at hello@workrowd.com.

One of the many challenges of being under a shelter-in-place order during such a major crisis is that it’s hard to know how to help. For those of us used to springing into action when a problem arises, the fact that one of the best things we can do right now is absolutely nothing (i.e. stay at home on the couch) presents a unique dilemma. Fortunately, companies can play a key role in helping their employees through this struggle while simultaneously sending key resources to organizations on the front lines of the pandemic: organize remote volunteering opportunities!

Social impact activities have long been a pillar of employee engagement programs for good reason: data overwhelmingly indicates that company-sponsored volunteering is important to employees. According to Deloitte’s Volunteer Impact Research, 89% of U.S. workers believe companies that offer volunteer opportunities have a better overall working environment than those who do not. Moreover, 77% consider company-sponsored volunteer activities ‘essential to employee well-being’. Seven out of 10 even think that volunteering is more likely to boost employee morale than company-sponsored happy hours! Volunteering is clearly a key engagement driver, so as we shift so many of our processes to remote frameworks, shouldn’t community service follow the same trend?

The answer is yes, especially when our country’s nonprofit sector is getting hit from all sides. The need for assistance is skyrocketing as the pandemic batters the economy, while the uncertainty ahead is prompting many to be less generous with their donations. Some charities are already operating with decreased staff capacity as people fall ill or need to stay home to care for children and other family members. Volunteerism is down as well amounting to an all-out crisis for many nonprofits. Some organizations are reporting as much as an 85% drop in volunteer turnout, amidst rapidly rising need.

Fortunately, there are ways to help without endangering your employees’ health or violating current restrictions. While social distancing obviously prohibits us from participating in many of the standard community service projects (e.g. serving food at a pantry or shelter, offering activities for seniors, assisting with after school programs), our brave and innovative colleagues in the nonprofit sector have pivoted to offer remote volunteering just as the rest of us have settled into remote working. Needs may vary by area, but some common opportunities include:

1. Placing phone calls to isolated seniors to conduct wellness checks and provide social connection
2. Tutoring children and youth who may be struggling with the transition to remote schooling to help them keep up with their coursework
3. Making items such as masks and hand sanitizer for organizations running low on protective supplies
4. Offering pro bono skills such as language translation, legal assistance, web design, social media marketing, etc. to help small businesses and/or nonprofits stay afloat
5. Supporting folks facing pandemic-related mental health challenges via text message

All of these activities offer the opportunity to boost engagement during (and after) this difficult time, and can improve employees’ well-being by providing productive outlets for their stress. If you don’t have an organization in mind you would like to work with, look for volunteer clearinghouses in your area, such as New York Cares or HandsOn Bay Area. They typically list volunteer roles directly on their websites for easy searching, or you can reach out to their staff for guidance.

If you’d rather focus on fundraising, organizations are certainly in need of donations too, and you can rally your entire team around the same cause. You can start a GoFundMe for your employees to contribute to so that everyone can see the goal and your progress towards it, however it’s best not to post donor names and amounts publicly so as not to make anyone feel pressured to give during these financially tenuous times. Another low-pressure way to help employees give back is by committing to match employee donations to organizations responding to the crisis. This enables employees to choose where they give, and lets them know you support both them and the broader community.

While the switch to remote work has been hard on many of us, some of the old methods of engaging employees still work, including leveraging affinity groups and organizing remote volunteering sessions. If you’re looking for an easy way to share information with employees and organize events, activities, and groups, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com. We’d be happy to chat about how we can make it easy to keep your employees engaged and informed no matter where they are.

Employee groups can be a critical tool for companies striving to build positive and inclusive cultures. In order to truly drive impact though, these communities require structure and support, and a dedicated plan to ensure their longevity. As you can imagine, we’ve done quite a bit of research on what makes for effective employee groups over the course of building Workrowd. When we first started out, it was difficult for us to find information and best practices, so we’ve compiled some of our findings here to hopefully help others in their process.

When considering starting employee groups at your company, the first step is to get input from your staff. Attempting to launch employee initiatives without direct involvement and buy-in from your team is a surefire way to stop your program before it starts. One of the primary goals of employee groups is to increase engagement; in order to achieve it, you have to genuinely engage your employees.

Asking for feedback is just the first step in the process. Whether it’s through surveys, focus groups, or other channels, you have to involve your employees from day one. Ask them what they really like about your company culture, as well as areas where you can improve. Find out what sorts of employee groups they would be interested in joining. Ensure you understand the full world of existing employee initiatives.

Once you’ve requested your employees’ input, you actually have to use what they’ve said to inform your program. You can’t decide what your groups should be in advance, then follow through with your plan regardless of what you hear from your team. This sounds intuitive, but you’d be surprised how many people have told us that this happened at their companies, so it’s critical that we highlight it here.

Once you’ve got your employee-determined roadmap, it’s time for implementation. We’ve got two big pieces of advice on this front:

1. Support your employee leaders. Employee culture champions are the unsung heroes of your organization. They’re engagement multipliers, boosting morale and thereby productivity, and serving double-duty as they balance both their primary job responsibilities and their commitment to enriching the workplace. Provide them the resources to run better groups. Recognize all of their contributions, not just those outlined in their role description. Connect them with an executive sponsor. Consider giving them a budget if possible. There are myriad ways to support these rockstars, so choose what works for your organization, but please don’t overlook them. You’ll lose them and much of the positive momentum from their group/program, too.
2. Require your groups to create a governing document. Employee groups that are not well supported by the company are at a high risk of falling apart if the leader(s) leave the organization. Additionally, groups without clearly defined goals can lose steam shortly after launch. Accordingly, it’s critical that you require your groups to put some structure around what they’re doing, develop a mission statement, set objectives, formulate a transition plan, etc. You can find examples of such governing documents online for reference (try looking up employee group charters), but this is a crucial step in ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of your groups.

Perhaps most importantly, don’t get discouraged if this process takes some time. Culture change is hard, and while well worth it both interpersonally and financially, it’s not something that can just happen overnight. It may be a little while before you see results from your groups, so you have to be prepared to stay the course and continue to check in and support them while they get up to speed.

So what are you waiting for? There’s no better time than today to jumpstart engagement and productivity at your company by starting and/or formalizing some employee groups. If you want help, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at hello@workrowd.com. We’re always happy to be a resource in any way we can, and our platform is designed specifically for employee group and events management complete with analytics, so we’ve got your back. We’re looking forward to seeing what your employees can do!