*10 Incredibly Simple But Effective Employee Engagement Activities*
We wonder why Airbnb, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn have been on the Forbes's Top 10 Best Places to Work in recent consecutive years? It's not simply about high salaries, good benefits and cool peaks as the first thought comes into your mind. The secret is their employee engagement.
*What is employee engagement?*
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment that the employee feels towards the organization and its goals. It means engaged employees are always willing to put full effort into their work because they really care about their company and their jobs are meaningful to them.
A lot of people including HR professionals get confused among employee engagement, employee happiness and employee satisfaction. Although these terms are related to each other, they don't refer to the same definition.
*Why does employee engagement matter?*
Gallup’s 2015 research shows that only 13 percent of all employees are “highly engaged,” and 26 percent are “actively disengaged”. Surprised? You might note that engagement and retention have different drives.
Engaged employees are always passionate about their work. Here are some benefits of high employee engagement:
- Foster productivity
- Boost morale within the organization
- Increase retention/ Decrease turnover
- Strengthen employer brand
- Enhance employee creativity and innovation
- Improve profitability
*The following 10 activities should be used to leverage employee engagement.*
1. Ask employees for ideas
Together we achieve better. Involve your employees in project planning process or ask their ideas for new business strategy, improvement solutions and let them discuss and vote for the best choices. These actions not only help brainstorm ideas for difficult issues but also make employees feel that their voice is important in decision making process.
2. Take time out
Engagement doesn't necessarily require your employees to be on task 100% of 8 hours a day. Make sure that your employees are not getting overwhelmed or stressed which may lead to higher turnover. The easiest way is allow people take time out from the cut and thrust of everything around. Some fun games or daily coffee time also work well in boosting the morale among employees.
3. Hold team building activities
There are thousands of options for team building activities in different scales. Employees prefer outdoor activities which play an important role in connecting people from different backgrounds. Sometimes a company outing helps your employees much more than any inhouse fun activities.
4. Take and give regular feedback
Feedback is an interactive process in a company. By listening to employee feedback, you can improve working environment. Furthermore, constructive feedback from coworkers and managers let employees feel more engaged at work.
5. Make onboarding process interesting
Onboarding process is very important to every new hire. It can make or break his/her decision to work for the company in the long run. There's no need to assign each new hire a mentor, but be sure that all of new comers are under instructions to get familiar with their new duties quickly. You can avoid making them feel alone by introducing their peers to help them get on well with each other as well as encourage them to participate in the internal channels.
6. Create internal communication channels
Internal communication channels make a great contribution to employee engagement. There are various channels for corporate communication to choose. Of course, each channel has it own pros and cons. Some most common internal communication channels are team meetings, email, Intranet, forum, website, newsletters, magazines, notice boards and text message. The choices can range on scale and field, but they share the same objective to showcase updates on the organization.
7. Provide learning and growth opportunities
It seems unwise for employers to give employees the wings to make them fly. However empowering your workforce is the key to achieving the bottom line. Provide your staff development opportunities and challenges, then you will get the best of them.
8. Offer rewards and recognition programs
Rewards and recognition programs can increase employee engagement for sure. In general, people are motivated more by the carrot than the stick. Your rewards and recognition programs should be aligned with corporate values for the best results. You can offer money or extra days off or other awards depending on your budget and employees' wishes.
9. Celebrate milestones
Happy and fun atmosphere of parties and celebrations within the company will bring people together. Milestones here are not only corporate events but also employee life ones such as weddings, birthdays or festivals like Thanksgiving, Halloween, Year End parties. You should encourage employees bring their family to join as well. This can help employees feel that company is the second big family.
10. Get employees involved with the community
Volunteer or charity programs are great ways to create the sense of unity within an organization. Besides, these community activities help enhance the company image in the eyes of all stakeholders. Your employees feel proud to be a part of a company that has a commitment to improving the community.
