Simple tips to engage employees

It’s safe to say nearly, if not all businesses have had a curve ball thrown at them, needing to adapt and change their business processes at a rapid pace. The pandemic’s forced may businesses to consider what the future of the workplace might look like. With national restrictions being lifted, what do businesses need to consider in order to keep their employees engaged?

Ensuring positive wellbeing’s vital to keeping employees engaged in the business. So, here are some simple tips each business can take to help with this:

• Ensure employees still feel part of a team. In a world of virtual meetings, ensure employees feel the collaboration aspect and can easily reach out if they need support or guidance, this is key. Make sure to put some time aside in your week to have a general catchup with your team members.
• Providing employees with the opportunity to socialise. For many employees, they won’t have seen their colleagues (in person) for over a year. The opportunity to catch up can help employees feel like they’re part of a team and can strengthen professional relationships throughout the business.
• Encouraging managers to have regular one to one meetings. Holding appraisals as normal (whether this be remotely or office based), provides employees with the opportunity to have open and honest discussions around how they feel things are going, where they may need support or the direction they’d like to take with their role.
• Find out what keeps your employees motivated. This can be done through one to ones, informal discussions or through the use of anonymous survey systems. Finding out what makes your employees tick is key to keeping them motivated and increasing or maintaining productivity.
• Keep employees up to date with what’s happening around the business. Keep them informed with what ‘office working’ might look like and what guidelines there are in place to ensure safe working practices. Employees who don’t feel safe or feel unclear on what they should be doing will often struggle to stay engaged.
• Clear communications on what the company vision, mission and purpose is. Employees who understand what these are will feel more involved in what the business is trying to achieve.
• Recognition for hard work or a job well done. It doesn’t have to have a monetary value, a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘well done’ can go a long way in keeping employees engaged.