Employee engagement is the measure of work satisfaction among your employees. Businesses become easier to run when the engagement of employees is high. This work-from-home situation has called for virtual employee engagement activities for the team. Nowadays, employee engagement is not about working 9 to 5, but being involved and taking responsibility for the work they do.
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Why Is Employee Engagement Important?
The engagement of employees is very important as it determines the success of an organization. Also, there are plenty of benefits of employee engagement. Like
- An engaged employee becomes proactive. He/She knows the roles and responsibilities. This clear understanding will help in better decision-making, which benefits the organization.
- When there is employee engagement, employees know very well about overcoming setbacks and driving value from each decision they make. This leads to growth and innovation
- With high rates of employee engagement, there is low employee turnover, improving employee retention thereby reducing hiring costs
Employee Engagement Articles
Also according to Harvard Business Review, engagement of employees does more than boosting the productivity of employees. According to it
- High rates of employee engagement can promote a variety of outcomes that are good for employees and customers.
- The success rate of a strongly engaged organization is almost twice as much as a poorly engaged organization.
- Employee engagement can also improve the quality of work and mental health, reducing absenteeism.
According to Dr. Jim Harter Ph.D., a chief scientist at Gallup Research, who has co-authored more than 1000 articles on employee engagement and workplace wellness states that engaged employees “continuously recreate jobs so that each person has a chance to do what they do best.”
10 Virtual Employee Engagement Activities For Your Team
Organizing Employee Wellness Sessions
It is tough to engage, especially while working remotely if we aren’t feeling well. Be it physical or mental wellness, it is important to focus and give priority to employee wellbeing and improve it.
Hosting employee wellness sessions can create positive employee engagement. Providing gym memberships, giving free access to therapists, conducting meditation sessions can be the other few perks of these employee wellness programs.
Fun Employee Engagement Activities
Spending time playing some fun employee engagement activities can make the employee feel happier and more involved in the organization. Getting the employees involved in games and competitions can help in building connections with one another.
Since we all work from home, many virtual multiplayer games can ace this idea.
Creating Employee Journals
The Employee Journal is used for onboarding and developing new remote members. This includes creating private Slack channels. It has purposes like
- Each employee can share thoughts and questions they have and the organization.
- Brings in new perspectives and freshness to the existing system and processes.
This can boost employee engagement and bring new ideas to the organization.
Ice-Breaker Questions
Virtual Ice-Breaker questions like “chocolate or ice cream”, “tea or coffee” etc can be included in virtual meetings and in conversations to level up the engagement rate of employees.
Virtual Parties
Working remotely has said a no-no to office parties and birthday parties. So small virtual parties can be celebrated to substitute these parties. Like celebrating virtual birthday parties, celebrating small wins, the celebration of work anniversaries on a virtual meet can engage the employees with each other and the organization.
Organizing Workshops and Training
Conducting workshop sessions and work-related training sessions for employees can make them proactive and increase their productivity. Conducting live sessions of these programs can upskill them and engage them with the work they are doing. Apart from this, this can be another benefits program for employees you provide.
Spreadsheet Pixel Art
If you are a nerd and like doing artistic works, then you will like doing Spreadsheet Pixel Art. In Spreadsheet Pixel Art, you add a little code to automatically replace numbers with a color fill for that cell. Then you can use these colors to “paint the numbers” and create pictures of nearly anything.
Remote Offsite Calls
Another interesting way to increase employee engagement is by connecting on calls where you call your people and talk about life. It can be anything like “How do they do”, “How is life outside of work”, and many other work-friendly topics. These kinds of casual conversations can create a good balance.
Group Challenges
Work from home can be challenging to maintain a healthy lifestyle and habits. So group challenges like healthy habits, like eating healthy, drinking enough water can be conducted and the winners can be provided with a gift card. In this way, you can build an employee wellness program in your workplace. This can improve employee engagement in your workplace.
Ted-style Talks by Employees
In this, the employees can be asked to give their Ted-style talks. These types of employee engagement strategies can inculcate leadership skills and increase the self-confidence of the employees. In this
- The Team members can list the expertise they have, which could range from mathematical problems to mastering the recipe of their favorite dish.
- Allowing 3 to 4 extra minutes for a Q and A session.
This is an excellent way to help boost team engagement during virtual meet hours because people are interested in their colleague’s personal stories and expertise.
To Summarize
These virtual employee engagement activities must be entertaining. Only then, team engagement can be increased. These fun activities can create a sense of belonging to the organization, hence they can be more engaged at work. As we all are in the middle of a crisis and doing remote work, it is important to organize such fun employee engagement activities to boost productivity.
The covid pandemic has severely impacted the employee engagement rate and employee wellness. In this regard, a survey answered by 120+ HR and People Operations leaders was conducted to deeply understand how employers take care of mental health at workplace and this India’s Health and Wellness at Work report had some interesting findings. Download your copy of the report now.
