29 Employee Engagement Ideas You Need to Know About
(Photo comes from Dale Carnegie)
HR managers can agree that employee engagement and retention is at the top of their priority list.
Every company wants to attract and keep the best talent.
The problem?
Many employees in today’s job market quickly feel uninspired by their work, get bored after 2 years and start job hunting for something new.
So we decided to speak with some of the best HR professionals and business leaders around the country to find the strategies they recommend to keep employees engaged. There are also some tips below that have been really successful at our company.
Here are 29 employee engagement ideas that you should apply at your office.
1. Offer healthier options at your workplace
Jason Lauritsen, Director of Best Places to Work at Quantum Workplace, discusses how to increase employee engagement by making healthier foods available on-site:
“Three-fourths of employees want access to healthy cafeteria or vending options at their workplace, but less than half of employers actually offer it as a benefit. This creates a great opportunity. Not only will providing this benefit help organizations play a role in boosting productivity, increasing performance, and lowering healthcare costs, but we’ve also found that employees who work at organizations that provide healthy cafeteria or vending options are 10 percent more likely to be engaged.”
2. Align your company with a purpose
SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly recently gave a presentation at the HR Star Conference, a large gathering of human resources professionals.
The presentation, titled “Millennials in The Workplace”, discussed how organizations can increase engagement with their millennial employees.
One of the key points Sean discussed was how important it is to align your company with an overall purpose. Don’t focus on what you do, but why you do it.
As millennials quickly begin to dominate the workforce, this message becomes more and more important.
Here’s what Sean had to say about aligning your company with a purpose (skip to the 19:35 mark):
3. Get your health and wellness program in order
Kevin Sheridan, New York Times best-selling Author of Building a Magnetic Culture, has helped some of the world’s largest corporations improve their culture and foster productive engagement.
When we asked him what companies should be doing better to improve employee engagement, he offered us this wisdom:
“The bottom line is that anyone who knows about employee engagement is also a firm believer in instituting health and wellness programs. There have been multiple scientific studies proving that health and wellness efforts not only yield higher productivity and engagement in the workplace but will also help reduce turnover as job stress is the #1 reason people quit (along with a lack of work-life balance which is related to wellness as well).”
4. Give your people “inside” information
Want to know a great way to get your team more involved and committed?
Keep them up to date with “inside” information. These are things like the direction of the company and the challenges that the Leadership Team is facing.
Tim Sackett, HR Pro and President at HRU Technical Resources, explains this important part of your employee engagement strategy:
“The one true fact in all workplaces is your people want to be in the know, they want to be in the circle of trust. HR and leadership, in general, do a crappy job at this, and it has a huge impact to engagement. Find ways to make this happen and let your people know that it’s “inside” information. Trusting your employees can handle it raises engagement.”
5. Celebrate personal wins
If someone on your team hits their monthly or quarterly goal, make it a win for your department or the whole company. Announce it to the rest of the team and celebrate with a Friday Happy Hour or fun outing.
6. Emphasize work-life balance
Work-life balance often seems like an impossible struggle. It’s difficult to find that right balance between work and personal life to feel good that both areas are receiving enough attention.
Blake McCammon of Blogging4Jobs, a popular blog focused on HR and the workplace, had this to say about work-life balance’s role in employee engagement:
“Work-life balance is one of the most important things employers can do to help employees not only stay healthy and fit, but keep them engaged day by day. Provide a work from home scenario and flexible hours where employees with children or adults with hobbies are allowed the freedom to enjoy life to the fullest, but still get their work done.”
Work-life balance is going to mean something difference for each employee, so speak with your team to see what you can be doing better as an organization to enhance it. Often times you’ll find that a flexible work schedule will be the easiest way to help people feel more balanced between work and leisure.
7. Praise your coworkers
It shouldn’t only be left to managers to praise good work. When you hear about someone’s achievement, go over and personally congratulate them. It’ll mean a lot to that person and they’ll likely do the same for you when your big wins come through.
9. Have more fun
Take a half day Friday to do something fun together. Go on a scavenger hunt, play sports outdoors, go paintballing or bowling. These social events help people bond with others on the team who they don’t interact with on a daily basis and builds a better sense of community within your organization.
10. Stand for something your team can be proud of
Irene Becker, voted as one of the Top 100 Employee Engagement Experts Online, answers the questions of how companies can drive and sustain employee engagement activities at a time when engagement is at an all time low:
“By showing our employees that we care, that we stand for something they can be proud of, and that we offer them meaningful, purposeful work and an opportunity to grow, learn, contribute and succeed because we know that success is a me to WE equation that starts with:
1. Personal, professional development and a structure for growth, recognition and are alive in the organization.
2. Managers, mentors and trainers that are equipped to coach, inspire and bring out the best in their people.
3. Communities of purpose; groups that are centered around a purpose driven business, CSR or community activity are alive, aligning shared values and mission with collaboration.
4. Transparency of communication and the integrity of the organizations commitment to growth, recognition and the optimization of individual and collective potential is mirrored in new ways of developing team spirit and vertical/horizontal collaboration.
5. Human interaction, social activities that engage our people as human beings in the human side of being part of a vibrant, growing, thriving culture.”
11. Send out an employee survey to get honest feedback
Sometimes it’s a lot easier for employees to say how they really feel in an anonymous survey. Actually, it’s always easier when it’s anonymous.
Use a tool like SurveyMonkey to create a survey and send it out to your team. Surveys are one of the few ways to actually measure and track engagement, so definitely make this part of your efforts.
Ask questions like:
How are you feeling? What’s the morale you see around you?
Good Idea (what one thing will make the biggest improvement in your job, your team or the organization?)
How satisfied are you with your opportunities for professional growth?
Do you have a good working relationship with your manager?
Are you satisfied with your overall compensation?
(Bonus: You can find a lot of other great survey questions using SurveyMonkey’s SHRM Foundation Employee Engagement Survey Template)
12. Find out what your team members are passionate about
Are they into mountain biking? Do they write a personal blog? Do they want to backpack around Southeast Asia next summer?
Know what your team is passionate about. It’ll help you connect with them and show them that you actually care about their interests.
13. Promote perks that boost mental and physical wellbeing
Perks can help make your office a more fun place to work.
JellyVision Interactive Marketing offers these awesome unique perks to their employees:
Unlimited vacation days (with the assumption this privilege won’t be abused)
The ability to work from home whenever necessary or work out an unconventional schedule
On-site yoga and a free healthy catered lunches every week
Company refrigerators and cupboards stocked with fruit and healthy snacks
A yearly Wellness Day featuring free 15-minute back massages for every employee and a taste test of unusual, healthy juices
Mustache Day (a sort of mustache-themed Halloween that culminates in a fancy lunch out)
Frequent company-wide involvement in charity fun runs
Beyond all these benefits, JellyVision also told us that they reduce work anxiety for their employees by 1) hiring nice, funny, talented people who become the sort of colleagues who make the day more enjoyable and 2) by nurturing a culture of transparency, humor and kindness—a way of being that is modeled by their founder, Harry, and CEO, Amanda.
Check out our list of corporate wellness ideas to give your wellness program some new life.
14. Create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and positive energy
Give high-fives for no reason, encourage each other to “crush” the day, ring a gong when a sale comes through.
15. Provide ongoing coaching and training
Coaching and mentoring shouldn’t stop after an employee’s initial on-boarding process. A study done by Deloitte in 2012 found that retention is 25% higher for employees who have engaged in company-sponsored mentorship.
Some people in your organization will proactively seek mentors and training, while others will need it to come directly from their manager. Offer an optional weekly coaching session to discuss strategies and tactics that can help each member of the department improve in their role.
16. Open consistent lines of communication
Ask the managers of your organization to setup a weekly meeting to see where their direct reports need resources, any new ideas they have, and how things are going in their role. You’ll find that both managers and direct reports will look forward to these meetings and use them like a strategy session to improve their department on a weekly basis.
17. Capture the magic of your team’s “I’s”
“To improve employee engagement, capture the magic of the I’s in team: integrity, initiative, individual talents, and invaluable diversity. Highlight each individual’s talents and how they contribute to the whole.”
-Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach
18. Make sure new hires get to know the whole team
We all get to know our bosses and direct reports pretty well, but it’s also important for new team members to build relationships with the rest of the staff.
UserVoice demonstrates this point well – they invite the whole staff to a game night whenever someone new joins the company. The company offers free beer, a game (think board games or pool/ping-pond/darts) and a “ridiculous sort of quiz” they invented.
19. Show employees how their job advances the company’s vision
Your company has undoubtedly recorded its vision and goals for the year. Why not show employees exactly how their jobs advance the vision? This will boost each employee’s investment in the success of the company instead of just feeling like a cog in the wheel.
20. Allow employees to move laterally within the organization
There are times when employees (especially the younger ones) are still figuring out their career paths. If a member of your team finds something else at your company that their passionate about and want to pursue, create a roadmap to get them there. This will help you retain some of your young talent when they might have otherwise abandoned ship.
21. Give your employees more responsibility, not just more tasks to do
Working at a company that highly values morale has given me some interesting insight on how to engage employees. I’ve noticed that the times my coworkers are incredibly devoted to our work, where states of “flow” seem to be abundant, are when they are given real responsibility.
This shouldn’t be confused with giving your team more things or tasks to do. I’m talking about giving them important projects and initiatives to take ownership of and knock out of the park. Humans are inherently goal-oriented, so when you give them something worth achieving, I believe you’ll be amazed at how much purpose and drive it gives them.
If you’re a manager, give one of your direct reports an important project to be the lead on. On the flip side, ask your manager to take on a project that you think will help you grow and learn something new.
Even if it’s something you have no experience doing – when you see your goal as being important to the success of the company you’ll find a way to get it done. And I promise you’ll feel more purpose from your work than ever.
22. Know your company culture and hire by it
If you know your company culture and hire by it, you’ll continue to bring people onboard who want to work with the person next to them.
23. Encourage volunteering
Show your commitment to community and social responsibility by giving your employees a couple hours each month to get out of the office and participate in community service.
Photo belongs to Digitas Photos via Flickr’s Creative Commons License
24. Celebrate your team
Make your team members feel special on their birthdays, work anniversaries, their first day of work, etc. CEO’s and Co-Founders – write a hand written note to your employees for these celebrations (they go a long way).
25. Hold office hours
This employee engagement idea is especially significant for upper management. Holding office hours is a great way to make yourself more approachable to the entire company. Allow people to come in for office hours to give feedback, talk concerns, and explore new ideas.
26. Build more trust
An overbearing boss who is constantly micromanaging might just be the fastest way to create disengagement. Trust your employees to accomplish the work you give them without checking up on them 4 times a day.
27. Send out some Monday Motivation
Find an inspirational quote or page from a book and send it out to your team on Monday mornings. It’s a super easy way to get people motivated and inspired and a day that’s typically slow to start.
Photo belongs to QuotesEverlasting via Flickr’s Creative Commons License
28. Create a roadmap to achieve professional goals
Find out what your employees’ professional goals are and make sure they’re on a track to achieve those goals. Managers should sit down with their direct reports and plan the roadmap to get them to that next promotion or to acquire the skills they desire.
29. Incentivize goals
Create some healthy competition and reward excellent performance with incentives for successful goal achievement. Tickets to a game, dinner for two or are inexpensive ideas that can help people feel more invested in their work.
Conclusion
When you focus more attention on engaging your employees, the results are higher productivity, better retention rates and improvements in organizational success across the board. Now it’s your turn to take these simple ideas and put them into practice at your office.
If you want even more easy and actionable tips to increase engagement at your office, click here to download our free guide “5 Simple Ways to Double Employee Engagement”. It has proven strategies to help you reduce employee turnover and help your team find more purpose in their work.
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