Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organisation, and put their greatest effort into their work.
As entire workforces continue to work from home, many employers and HR leaders can agree that employee engagement and retention are at the top of their priority list. Maintaining a highly engaged & enthusiastic workforce is a critical part of retaining top talent as well as attracting new talent.
With remote working being the new normal, it can be difficult to think of employee engagement ideas that actually result in success! Employees who are engaged in their work are more likely to be motivated and remain committed to their employer which then leads to business goals being achieved and the overall organisation being driven forward.
Employee engagement goes beyond team meeting attendance, maintaining relationships with team members and planning social events for colleagues.
Here are 5 unique remote ideas to help you.
Employee feedback surveys
Building and maintaining strong employee engagement can be challenging when you have employees working from home – especially if they’re not used to remote work. Your employees might be facing different challenges, but you won’t know about them unless you ask.
Employees may not feel comfortable to speak up or address their concerns in a daily team meeting or even one to one. This is why an employee engagement survey is a perfect solution. You should conduct surveys at least once a month. That way you’ll be able to compare results to see if there are any changes being made or issues that can be improved.
Need some help to kickstart your survey? Here are a few engagement questions for your employees that you should include:
- What do you think could help us to improve daily communication?
- Do you feel like you can easily reach your colleagues when you need them?
- How can we help you improve your work from home experience?
- Are you happy with your productivity level?
- What is the biggest challenge you are currently facing while working remotely?
Video
If you are aiming to provide an engaging employee experience for a diverse workforce, you really need to go above and beyond with your employee engagement ideas. Don’t be afraid to start using video as one of the main tools in your internal communications. Video content is really accessible and consumable so you’re guaranteed to grab people’s attention with it.
Go behind the scenes and work with a video team to remotely interview some of your employees and showcase what is going on in the company. This is a great asset which can be used at:
- Company-wide events
- Team workshops
- Internal newsletters
- Company-wide announcements
Videos are a great employee engagement idea for anyone struggling to engage remote employees. It allows employees to feel as if they’re together and enables an authentic and engaging employee experience to happen. Get creative with the videos and work with a video team to build company culture videos featuring all employees.
After all, who doesn’t love the limelight?
Celebrate success
As we continue to work-from-home, companies and organisations are relying on conferencing platforms to keep up communications and maintain day-to-day work and productivity. We have already looked at ways to keep employees connected by having regular coffee catch-ups and Friday drinks but what about hosting a fun awards ceremony?
It’s a great way to showcase to employees that you appreciate the work that they do! It also does not have to be high cost so you can work with whatever budget you do or don’t have. It can be as simple as ‘Employee of the Month’ or coming up with a monthly awards ceremony which includes awards such as “Most Creative Employee of the Year,” or “Most Organised Employee.”
You can then showcase these employees in your newsletter or through video like we previously mentioned. Everyone likes getting feedback and recognition!
Health & Wellness
A focus on health and wellness is great for improving employee morale and productivity. Create a wellbeing plan for your employees to focus while they work remotely. This could be a weekly menu of things which employees can choose from to help them break up their day and disconnect from work and the media.
Consider sharing apps, podcasts and online programmes which focus on mindfulness and meditation. Did your company before offer exercise classes? You could now organise virtual classes. It’s also important to offer advice around working remotely. Send reminders for everyone to take breaks and lunch, go for walks and stay hydrated throughout the day!
Workshops
A brilliant employee engagement idea for enabling camaraderie is organising an interactive workshop. By hosting a workshop you’ll have a dedicated time where anyone who wants too will get the opportunity to discuss employee engagement ideas.
During the workshop, you’ll get the chance to:
- Gather and discuss insights anyone has found
- Learn about what has been a success and a failure and why
- Brainstorm new ideas and strategies to kickstart in the workplace
Try to use visual storytelling to brainstorm ideas as these resonate better with people and will spark better conversations. Introduce these workshops to every department and see what everyone has to say. Remember that employees, especially newer employees, want the opportunity to contribute to where they work and this gives them the opportunity to get involved and feel a part of something. This will also be a great exercise to give you a clearer understanding of what employee engagement means to the different generations all the way from the baby boomers to millennials to generation Z.
Looking for help engaging your employees? Get in touch with our employer branding experts
