Top 7 Employee Engagement Ideas to Boost Morale
Posted on:
by Namratha Ambat
IT Jobs and Recruitment Insights
Employee engagement is critical to the growth and success of any company. An engaged and communicative team will help deliver far superior results, which will then help the organisation reach its goals.
Employee engagement does not have a particularly given structure to it. It’s built on experience, psychology, and business models. It needs to be tried and tested in order to find the right solutions for your company. Along with this, there needs to be room for consistent improvement as it’s not the case of a one-size-fits-all approach.
So, when the pandemic struck, it forced leadership teams to adapt and transform their employee engagement initiatives. This opened new and interesting doors on the engagement front with regards to onboarding and day-to-day work life. We’ve listed some popular ideas that might help your team.
7 employee engagement ideas that will lift your team’s spirits
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Encourage and motivate personal development
Support your employees when it comes to personal projects that will help them develop new skills, which will, in turn, impact the organisations’ progress and productivity. Encourage them to converse and engage across teams as well, so that they’re able to bounce ideas off each other and learn from one another.
For example: If an employee signs up to pursue an online course, allow them a set amount of time per day/week for learning and development. Simultaneously, set aside one hour a week, maybe call it ‘Brain-storm Thursdays’ where they can communicate with each other and build new ideas together.
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Create a well mapped out buddy system for new starters
New employees while joining new teams probably have a list of questions to go through. Some of these questions might concern leadership teams, but others that they would like to clear up with their fellow team members.
To make this a seamless process for them, it is key to have one constant point of contact for each individual starter. Especially with remote and hybrid work models becoming the norm for the future, it would make communication easier and ensure that they’re well taken care of.
Pro tip: Along with having the regular on-boarding process mapped out, schedule meetings with each team member of the new starter. This way they’re able to learn about everyone’s typical day and their area of expertise. These meetings will not only act as an introduction but will also highlight the strengths of certain team members, who they can later connect with for specific queries.
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Pay attention to the innovators
Keep an eye out for those employees who go beyond their designated job description and lend insights to help improve processes and deliver better strategies.
Keep an ear out for good ideas and commend those who take the initiative to present them. Sharing one’s ideas is not always the easiest, it takes confidence to voice your opinion, so when an employee speaks up trying to make a difference and improve productivity, recognise their contribution.
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Celebrate milestones and achievements
Your team has been working hard during these turbulent and dynamic times. So when you see them performing well and hitting targets and in some cases surpassing what’s expected of them, they need to be appreciated.
Pro tip: Celebrate them and congratulate them. Even giving them the recognition they deserve on a group call is solid positive reinforcement. Go the extra mile if you can and send them a token of appreciation, to show them you’re grateful for their effort.
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Non-work related team sessions
It’s all well and good to have meetings and brainstorming sessions for work-related matters, but it is equally important to have meetings or gatherings to uplift the company culture.
For example: Bring the team together on Friday evening (virtually for now). A relaxed conversation or a good game could get everyone involved.
Here’s a great little game that will capture everyone’s attention- Naraview, or the ‘Wikipedia game’ like we called it. It’ll bring on the competitive side of everyone, but a good laugh in the end. Highly recommend it!
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Develop a proper feedback system
This is important. Your employees need to know that their input is highly valuable. They need to know that if some of the work practices are not working well for them, that they are able to voice their opinion and be heard.
These concerns should be addressed and where possible, dealt with in the right manner. Make the workplace their safe space, this will strengthen their loyalty towards your company.
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Build long-term engagement plans
Employee engagement initiatives should take into consideration the long-term goals as well. Picture the company goals and create a structured plan for the employees accordingly. But always create space for improvement on these plans as well.
There are several elements to ensure employee engagement grows. Personal career development, company culture, recognition, and even onboarding. As a member of the leadership team, you need to make an impact in all these different areas for the employee to feel connected with the organisation and put their best foot forward.
If you would like to hear more about the employee engagement practices in the current IT industry in Ireland you can get in touch with us at info@gempool.ie and we would be happy to share our insights with you.
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