Category: Employee Engagement

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!

Workrowd has a whole new look, new features on the way, and new partnerships in the works; 2020 is already shaping up to be full of excitement! For those of you just joining the Krowd, we wanted to take a moment to reintroduce ourselves as part of this rebrand. Workrowd is the employee experience platform that serves both people and profit. Our employee group and events management tools empower everyone in your organization to build company culture, driving engagement from the ground up.

Despite extensive focus in the HR community and beyond, the conversation around employee engagement hasn’t changed much over time. As one would expect, neither have the numbers. In 2019, ADP reported that only 16% of employees are ‘Fully Engaged’. This global study of nearly 20,000 people found that 84% of the working population is “just coming to work”. This should be a pretty clear signal that our current approaches aren’t working. This is also the reason we started Workrowd: to offer a new solution to our employee engagement struggles, and improve the workday for everyone.

Workrowd leverages tried and true methods of fostering deep belonging to enrich the employee experience. Across all areas of life, we form peer groups around shared needs and interests that help us feel included and fulfilled. From K-12 up through college and on into adulthood out in our communities, we organize and bond around everything from pets to politics. With the modern evolution of work manifesting in a multitude of ways, it’s time to bring in something both familiar and proven to help employees feel more invested in their workplaces.

Our user-friendly platform offers an array of tools to help cultivate an engagement strategy uniquely tailored to your employees. Some of the highlights are:

1. A streamlined hub for internal culture to build transparency, connection, and interest across your company
2. Events management tools for easy organizing including customizable RSVP options, automated calendar invites and reminders, comments, guest lists, and more
3. Activity roadmaps to support employee leaders in running productive, sustainable groups that drive business outcomes
4. Drag and drop analytics to ensure that People leaders have all the data and metrics they need at a glance

While typical engagement solutions revolve around surveying or giving shout-outs, Workrowd builds cross-team connections to boost happiness and loyalty among employees. One of the key reasons why people stay anywhere, personally or professionally, is because they feel connected to the people around them. Workrowd empowers your people to find their people, then takes it a step further, equipping them to build initiatives around topics that are critical to your employer brand. From diversity and inclusion to social impact, professional development to intrapreneurship, our platform offers resources to help your employees launch programs that generate results.

It’s time to take some of the pressure off your People team, and put power in the hands of your actual people, to help them build a workplace that makes everyone proud. By rallying your entire team around shaping your company culture, you’ll develop a winning environment that will retain your high performers and lock in those star recruits. You’ll see higher productivity and agility, as employees build cross-team connections that lead to unexpected synergies and increased output. You’ll give everyone the opportunity to be a part of something special, something that can only happen at your company, with your mission and mix of employees. You’ll play a key role in the ongoing effort to cultivate a happier, more engaged workforce.

If you’d like to learn more and officially join the krowd, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Separately, we’re always looking for feedback, and we’re truly committed to building this movement in partnership with the HR community, so if you’ve got ideas and/or comments, we’re all ears. You can reach us at hello@workrowd.com. We look forward to building a better employee engagement solution with you.