Some Simple Ideas for Employee Engagement During COVID
There are plenty of companies, before COVID, who would talk about having their employees, working in the ‘right way’ and the ‘right time’ in the ‘right place’.
What this meant was that they didn’t really want you to work remotely but that they would cover all bases by having such slogans in their remote working policies.
Sound familiar?
Now things have changed.
The race to get your team working remotely has never had a more pressing need and when you have a team working in separate places you need to ensure that you are engaging with them in a meaningful way. In a way that encourages, and aims to get the best out of people without having that crucial face to face time.
So what to do?
There are a few clear and easy steps ideas that you could try and bring out the best in your team, and we cover them below.
These tips are not innovative, they are quite basic, but they maybe ones that you may just not have had the time to focus on, or may have slipped off your radar in these difficult times.
Learning
Finding the time to brush up on your learning is difficult, but if you give you employees and team space to learn and develop it speaks volumes about the type of organisation you are. Also, gone are the days when you need to enrol into an expensive learning management platform in order to offer training, as the resources are plentiful and free to use and access.
There are some great ones on youtube of course, and MIT https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm offers some amazing resources as well.
Of course, not all resources are free or available on a quick google search, but give your employees some space and time to look into this themselves. It doesn’t have to impact massively on work time, an hour a week will work wonders. This shows trust and is clearly communicating a wish for them to develop and grow, which ultimately will help your business.
Feedback
Do you do 360-degree appraisals, or reviews or supervision?
It’s not rocket science to say that they are a sign that you care, and that you are investing in the employee’s development at work.
There are some great resources out there on how to start.
Reed offers some good starting points on 360-degree appraisals, and as we move out of lockdown in the future these will prove a good grounding point for your team.
https://www.reed.co.uk/career-advice/360-degree-appraisal-what-you-need-to-know
Communication and Gratitude
Have you ever took the time to pick up the phone to your team, to thank them for their work and commitment?
Clearly, if you have a team of 100 people this isn’t going to work but if you have a manageable amount of employees, then you can schedule calls over the course of a few weeks.
This call is about thanking them, showing gratitude for the work they have been doing in difficult circumstances.
This is one of those small things that rarely happen, but if you take the time to focus on this 10-minute call it will reap rewards in ways that you may not have imagined.
Use this call to focus on this message and this message only.
I hope these prompt you into thinking about engaging your team and as usual, the normal channels are open to getting in touch with us here at global innovation magazine.
Let us know how you’re getting along, and share your stories of innovation and inspiration.
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