Employee Engagement
Surefire Employee Engagement Ideas to Boost Productivity
Anila Wadhera
Jan 2022
We’re all living through constantly changing workplace environments, from remote-work related challenges to the rise of the gig economy where a lot of jobs are now on-demand, short-term, and project-based. In this era, improving and sustaining employee engagement “at the workplace” has become increasingly challenging. There are many roadblocks that employees face when working in these configurations. This includes remaining viable, staying organized, maintaining their identity, building relationships, and coping emotionally. This has a direct as well as indirect impact on an employee's productivity, retention, engagement, and thus on the culture of a company. As per recent research by Gallup , only 39% of U.S. workers feel engaged at their jobs. In this article, we’ve listed down some practical suggestions on what organizations can do to boost employee engagement and create happy workplaces.
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The proven power of engaged employees
It’s essential to understand why is employee engagement important, and why organizations should prioritize it. A Gallup survey found that strong employee engagement results in a 41% reduction in absenteeism, 17% increase in productivity, 20% increase in sales, and overall 21% greater profitability.
Define what employee engagement means for your company
Before thinking about how to increase employee engagement, it is imperative to define employee engagement metrics for your company. Forbes defines employee engagement as the emotional commitment that employees have toward the organization and its goals. But the word “employee engagement” alone doesn’t give you many insights. You need to consider what it means for your own employees to be engaged specifically. For example, engaged employees always ask what more they can do to benefit the company, ask questions during meetings, meet their deadlines, communicate effectively with peers, share exciting ideas with their managers, etc. Once you decipher what employee engagement looks like in your company, you can set your sights on achieving it.
10 Commandments to Increase Employee Engagement
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Invest in an Employee Experience Platform
It’s important to ensure that not just your customers but your employees also feel the love. Invest in an employee engagement platform that brings everyone together in sharing goals, achieving success, giving shoutouts, and celebrating great work.
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Half Day Friday Fun
Keep one or two Fridays in a month for taking a half-day Friday to do something fun together. Scavenger hunts, sports outdoors, bowling, go-karting, etc., are great for outdoor team bonding and cultivating new interactions and networking.
If your team is partly or fully virtual, you could experiment with a Happy Hour Trivia, Virtual Escape Rooms, or Virtual Fitness & Mental Health Challenges, etc. to build a better sense of community and camaraderie in the organization.
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Give More Responsibility, Not More Tasks
Employees are naturally dedicated to work models that exhibit states of abundant flow and purpose. Oftentimes, giving responsibility is confused with giving more tasks. Instead, identify the real strengths of your employees and give them ownership to knock out important projects and initiatives of the park. If you’re a manager, give your direct reports an important project to lead. Even if they have no experience doing it – when they see their goal as being important to the success of the company, they’ll find a way to get it done.
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Care to Share the Glory
Show employees how their job impacts and advances the company’s goals and vision. This will boost their investment in the success of the company instead of just feeling like a cog in the wheel. A few ways to do this is by creating a list of specific employee responsibilities and mapping each of them to each goal/vision that it contributes to. For example, if the responsibility is “managing social media” and your company vision is to “promote health and fitness,” then highlight how social media engagement builds brand awareness and recognition.
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Enable Employees to Do What They Love
Nobody gets excited by thinking about emptying their inbox in the morning. According to Atlassian, employees receive an average of 304 emails per week and spend about 62 hours in meetings. While administrative work is necessary to any job, employees often get bogged down in repetitive tasks and forget what they love about their profession. This may also hamper their overall passion and productivity in their role. Create a platform where employees can cut down unproductive email/meeting time and spend it on doing meaningful work.
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Find Out Your Team Members’ Passion
Are they into backpacking or mountain biking, or soccer? Ever considered forming a casual company league? Know what your team is passionate about and create employee engagement activities around that. This will help you connect with them better and show them that you actually care about their interests. It’s also a good idea to find ways to integrate their interests into the workplace. For example, if someone looks after accounts but is passionate about art, then you might want to give him/her an opportunity to shadow somebody in the graphics team for a day.
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Prioritize Health & Wellness
Instituting health and wellness programs as a part of company culture is integral to fostering productive engagement and creating a feeling of being looked after in the employees. Health and wellness efforts in the workplace not only contribute to higher productivity but also reduce turnover, considering that job stress is the #1 reason employees quit a job.
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Give Perks to Boost Mental & Physical Wellbeing
Organizations that offer perks to boost wellbeing often rank high in “best places to work at” lists. You too can build your organization as one brimming with mental and physical wellbeing. A few things you could implement are:
- Flexible working hours
- Free yoga or healthy meal coupons
- Ergonomic seating allowance
- Reimbursements for back/foot massage
- Free counseling sessions at regular intervals
- Frequent company-wide involvement in charity fun runs
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Send Appreciation & Celebrate Your Team
Engage your employees with tangible tokens of appreciation that reassure them that their efforts are being recognized and valued. You can curate personalized gifts to help your employees feel more connected to their team and to the vision and mission of the organization. Make your employees feel special on special occasions such as their birthdays, work anniversaries, their first day at work, etc.
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Provide a Circle of Trust
Another great way to keep your employees more involved and committed is by keeping them up to date with “inside” information, such as the direction of the company and the challenges that the leadership team may be facing. A true fact in all workplaces is that your employees want to be in the know. You can find ways to relay inside information to your employees and let them know that it’s “inside” information. Trusting that your employees can handle it raises engagement.
It’s important to ensure that not just your customers but your employees also feel the love. Invest in an employee engagement platform that brings everyone together in sharing goals, achieving success, giving shoutouts, and celebrating great work.
Keep one or two Fridays in a month for taking a half-day Friday to do something fun together. Scavenger hunts, sports outdoors, bowling, go-karting, etc., are great for outdoor team bonding and cultivating new interactions and networking. If your team is partly or fully virtual, you could experiment with a Happy Hour Trivia, Virtual Escape Rooms, or Virtual Fitness & Mental Health Challenges, etc. to build a better sense of community and camaraderie in the organization.
Employees are naturally dedicated to work models that exhibit states of abundant flow and purpose. Oftentimes, giving responsibility is confused with giving more tasks. Instead, identify the real strengths of your employees and give them ownership to knock out important projects and initiatives of the park. If you’re a manager, give your direct reports an important project to lead. Even if they have no experience doing it – when they see their goal as being important to the success of the company, they’ll find a way to get it done.
Show employees how their job impacts and advances the company’s goals and vision. This will boost their investment in the success of the company instead of just feeling like a cog in the wheel. A few ways to do this is by creating a list of specific employee responsibilities and mapping each of them to each goal/vision that it contributes to. For example, if the responsibility is “managing social media” and your company vision is to “promote health and fitness,” then highlight how social media engagement builds brand awareness and recognition.
Nobody gets excited by thinking about emptying their inbox in the morning. According to Atlassian, employees receive an average of 304 emails per week and spend about 62 hours in meetings. While administrative work is necessary to any job, employees often get bogged down in repetitive tasks and forget what they love about their profession. This may also hamper their overall passion and productivity in their role. Create a platform where employees can cut down unproductive email/meeting time and spend it on doing meaningful work.
Are they into backpacking or mountain biking, or soccer? Ever considered forming a casual company league? Know what your team is passionate about and create employee engagement activities around that. This will help you connect with them better and show them that you actually care about their interests. It’s also a good idea to find ways to integrate their interests into the workplace. For example, if someone looks after accounts but is passionate about art, then you might want to give him/her an opportunity to shadow somebody in the graphics team for a day.
Instituting health and wellness programs as a part of company culture is integral to fostering productive engagement and creating a feeling of being looked after in the employees. Health and wellness efforts in the workplace not only contribute to higher productivity but also reduce turnover, considering that job stress is the #1 reason employees quit a job.
Organizations that offer perks to boost wellbeing often rank high in “best places to work at” lists. You too can build your organization as one brimming with mental and physical wellbeing. A few things you could implement are:
- Flexible working hours
- Free yoga or healthy meal coupons
- Ergonomic seating allowance
- Reimbursements for back/foot massage
- Free counseling sessions at regular intervals
- Frequent company-wide involvement in charity fun runs
Engage your employees with tangible tokens of appreciation that reassure them that their efforts are being recognized and valued. You can curate personalized gifts to help your employees feel more connected to their team and to the vision and mission of the organization. Make your employees feel special on special occasions such as their birthdays, work anniversaries, their first day at work, etc.
Another great way to keep your employees more involved and committed is by keeping them up to date with “inside” information, such as the direction of the company and the challenges that the leadership team may be facing. A true fact in all workplaces is that your employees want to be in the know. You can find ways to relay inside information to your employees and let them know that it’s “inside” information. Trusting that your employees can handle it raises engagement.
TAKEAWAY
Employee engagement is one of the critical pillars in building productive and happy workplaces. Charity Footprints offers many virtual employee engagement ideas to make your organization a great place to work while keeping your employees super productive and involved. Get in touch with our team today!
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