How to Keep up Your Employee and Business Wellbeing during Covid-19 | Part 1
The good news is that even in the most challenging environment there always are different tools and activities available to make your workplace more productive, collaborative and engaged by building an effective internal communication strategy. Internal communication has a tremendous impact on employee productivity, teamwork, employee experience, and ultimately employee engagement.
We encourage two-way communication to make sure managers and employees are aligned with the company’s vision and goals. The perception employees have about an organization and their role has a direct impact on their motivation and productivity.
Employee engagement is one of the most important talent management milestones as it has direct impact on business results and longevity. The less engaged employees are, the more time and effort it will take to reach business goals. Not only new business models have to be adapted to the existing market situation caused by Covid-19, but also new and more creative approaches must be implemented to increase employee motivation, engagement and efficiency. For many organisations these rapid changes are rather challenging and often it’s easy to get lost in all the information available about engagement and talent management. Therefore, we have selected a collection of engagement activities based on Talentor Latvia professional experience that will not only boost employee engagement, but also support long-term business goals.
9 Engagement Activities to Boost Your Employee's Engagement
2. Have fun!
Easier said than done, but having fun at work is crucial to develop connection between employees and take off some of the pressure that might have accumulated due to challenging work environment and tasks. As humans we are social beings and we need interaction to develop trustful and open relationships with our colleagues, especially now when we see each other mostly through virtual meetings rather than on site. Implementing fun activities can help maintaining positive interaction within the team, reduce stress, enhance collaboration skills and let employees get to know each other on more personal level. Even more – some studies have shown that workplace fun has direct impact on job satisfaction and task performance. Some of remote activities might include virtual escape room and VR games, remote get-togethers, virtual cinema evenings and so on. There are a lot of on-site activities that we loved and were used to do prior Covid-19, so why not to adapt them for remote settings?
3. Show your team that you care
Recognition is one of the most important tools to increase employee engagement – your team needs to know that their work is valued and that they have done a good job. For managers it’s often challenging to understand what type of recognition works the best. Therefore, it’s highly important to get to know each employee on individual level – for some a shoutout about a job done good will work well, for others it might be an individual “thank you”, a small gift or something else. The most effective way is to find out what motivates each of your employees and tailor reward to this motivation along with tying recognition program to organizational values which are proven to outperform other programs. Sometimes, a small cupcake with the note “We really value you as our team member!”, lunch or home fitness equipment might do wonders.
4. Keep up physical activities
Physical activities are very important per se, but now when a lot of us are working from home and gyms are closed, it has become an even more important aspect. Different studies have shown that implementing culture of health in the workplace has a lot of benefits related with reduced health care costs, less absence due to sick leave and increased returns on investment. There are numerous activities that can be implemented for boosting employees’ health and engagement. For example, organisations can create different sports challenges where employees can compete individually or in teams, implement walk&talk activities that allow meetings to be held during walks in fresh air or assign fitness trainer for virtual workout sessions where employees can exercise together at the comfort of their own home. Such activities not only will have positive impact on employees’ health but also improve their motivation.
Coming up in Part 2
In part 2 of our blog post we will give you five more great ideas to boost your employees engagement: from counselling sessions to cope with remote work to involving employees in long-term responsibilities or informal management meetings.
Stay tuned!