A few years ago, not a lot of organizations felt the need to lay emphasis on employee engagement. However, times have now changed and we are dwelling in a revamped corporate world. In this new business world, employee engagement has become a buzzword. Organizations are now increasingly acknowledging the fact that engagement has direct business benefits to offer.
To substantiate, as per Forbes, organizations can increase their profitability by 21 percent when they have highly engaged teams. This explains why modern organizations are obsessed with the idea of cultivating high engagement. This is where employee engagement activities come into the scene. Organizations are now looking for innovative and unique employee engagement activities to create a real difference. Today, employee engagement strategies are as important as your branding strategies.Â
However, there is some enormous planning that you need in the backdrop of your employee engagement activities. This blog elucidates a step-wise approach that can lead to the effective planning of employee engagement activities. By following these recommendations, you can drive high success in the outcomes of your employee engagement activities.Â
Steps included in planning employee engagement activities
Make decision making inclusive
Why should HR managers or business leaders have the exclusive right to decide on employee engagement activities? Why should you have this exclusive privilege with you? It is always a better idea to ask others as well for their opinion. After all, inclusive organizations keep their decision-making as inclusive as possible.
The bottom line is that while planning employee engagement activities, you should ask for suggestions and ideas from the entire team. The majority consensus should be taken into consideration while finalizing employee engagement activities.Â
Besides, when employee engagement activities are based on employees’ suggestions, they do not have a choice. They will have to participate anyway in activities they volunteered to suggest. Makes complete sense right?
Create diverse teamsÂ
Diversity and inclusion are thriving trends in the modern workplace. However, having a diverse workforce and having a highly engaged diverse workforce are two different things altogether. If you have a diverse workforce, blending D&I into engagement activities will be a great idea.
One of the simplest ways to do that is to create teams that boast diversity. For instance, during team activities, you can create teams with equal representation of men and women. Moreover, you can have people from different working generations and cultural backgrounds in the same team.Â
In this way, you can promote working relationships between people who may otherwise find themselves on different ends of the spectrum.Â
The greater the diversity you promote in team-building activities the greater will be the results in terms of fostering high engagement in a diverse workforce. The approach we are suggesting can surely be an incredible idea.Â
Get the excitement goingÂ
Even if it is the most common of all employee engagement activities, there should be no shortcomings in the buzz. You should promote all employee engagement activities in the workplace with great zest to get the excitement going.
This is where social media can be a great platform. You can post stories, polls, and updates about the imminent employee engagement activities. When you create great buzz around your employee engagement activities, it will definitely capture the interest of your employees. They will feel far more elated and enthusiastic to participate in every activity.Â
Also, through social media posts and internal emails, you can announce awards for employee engagement activities. Who does not like the idea of awards after all? When the stakes are high, engagement will be by default. So make sure you promote healthy competition among your employees when you conduct employee engagement activities.
Identify all the prerequisites
For most employee engagement activities, you may need some props or equipment. Also, for these props or accessories, you will need a financial budget. Arranging for things at the last minute will certainly kill the buzz.Â
Hence, it is an incredible idea to identify all the necessities beforehand. You should create an all-inclusive list at least three to four days before the activity schedule and arrange things well in time. In this way, you can organize and manage your organization’s employee engagement activities in a more systematic way.
Keep the norms flexibleÂ
The rules of the game are not as important as your ambition of boosting employee engagement, right? The ultimate purpose of any sporting activity or other forms of team-building activities in the workplace is to create a conducive environment for high engagement. Having said that, we suggest that you keep the rules simple and flexible.
Your employees should be free to digress from the rules a little in the best interest of fostering great excitement and collaboration. So, why keep things rigid? Let there be great fun and flexibility such that the employees can enjoy themselves to the fullest. They anyway face stress in the workplace on a usual workday. Why stress them with tough rules while they are simply trying to enjoy themselves by participating in engagement activities?Â
In fact, you could look for some creative and innovative ways to keep it simple and inclusive for everyone. The more uncomplicated it is, the higher will be the indulgence and willingness to participate.Â
Promote leadership opportunities
The fact of the matter is that organizations need future leaders as much as they need high employee engagement. Besides, offering leadership opportunities to your employees can definitely be a great idea to enhance engagement levels. So, why not blend leadership opportunities with employee engagement activities?Â
While conducting employee engagement activities, you should plan it in a way that you offer leadership opportunities to as many people. For instance, let’s say you are planning a game of soccer as an employee engagement activity. A normal game of soccer is for 90 minutes as we all know.Â
So, you can plan it in a way that each team can have three different captains during the course of 90 times. In this way, you can have six captains in total, and in this way, you can make leadership opportunities accessible to as many people. In accordance with this example, you can plan any activity in a way that promotes ample leadership opportunities. In the ultimate sense, you can cultivate high engagement and leadership development in a simultaneous way.
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Take feedback at the endÂ
After an employee engagement activity comes to an end, it is vital to take feedback. How would you know if a particular engagement activity worked well to boost engagement or not? Well, the simplest way to find out is to ask your employees if they enjoyed being a part of it or not. After all, seeking feedback is never a bad idea, is it?
If you feel an activity did make a positive difference in the engagement scenarios, you would surely want it to become a recurring event. Otherwise, if an activity failed to indulge employees as expected, you would surely look to find an alternative the next time around.Â
The bottom line is that after an activity is concluded, you should ask your team members about their experience. From their response, you can certainly figure out the effectiveness of your employee engagement activities.Â
To encapsulate, employee engagement has now become a necessity for organizations. Organizations are now increasingly investing in employee engagement activities to foster cultures of high performance. However, it is also true that not all organizations have succeeded in driving the engagement levels they would have liked. This is for the simple reason that there is a systematic approach behind every engagement activity which organizations often overlook. With the above stepwise approach to determining effective engagement activities, you can win big on the speedometer of engagement.