Let’s first answer the question: Why should you focus on employee engagement? Well, increases in revenue, better collaboration, less employee burnout, and higher productivity are all rewards that your company can experience when you do. The new year is an ideal opportunity to implement new initiatives and get your employee engagement plan going strong. Start with these 4 ideas for enhancing employee engagement to help your company outperform last year and build an even more promising 2023.
1. Hold events and start traditions
Create traditions in your workplace that your employees will rally behind. Employees experience more job satisfaction when they feel that they are a meaningful part of the team. Traditions strengthen company culture and motivate your team to buy into what you’re building.
Start by breaking out the calendar. Events and outings bring together employees from different departments who may not regularly spend time together during the typical workweek. They also encourage the team to bond and share their personalities or interests with each other. When a team feels more comfortable around each other, they work better as a team.
Whether you hold these events monthly or quarterly, schedule them with some regularity to break up the work weeks and give your team benchmarks to look forward to. Examples of events that can become traditions in your company include:
- Monthly social outings where employees can bond and enjoy food, activities, and entertainment
- Spring and summer company picnics and cookouts
- Conferences and business events to showcase your company’s endeavors and create networking opportunities
- Corporate golf outings, sports tournaments, or game days
- Employee appreciation days or award ceremonies
For the most positive impact, consider the different individuals on your team and plan these events with their interests in mind.
2. Regularly recognize achievements
Never leave to question whether your employees know that you recognize their achievements and hard work. Employees who know they’re appreciated produce more at work and enjoy a better overall quality of life.
Establishing principles of loyalty and rewarding high achievement can sustain a company by motivating your employee’s efforts. It solidifies your company’s values and encourages your team to understand the greater vision and mission as they find ways to contribute.
Explore some effective ways to recognize hard work and achievement:
- Hold awards banquets where you give out plaques and trophies for exceptional performance
- Give out prizes, tech gadgets, and other useful items that employees will appreciate
- Recognize employees on a weekly or biweekly basis by email, Slack, or with a small office-wide speech
- Offer bonuses, free lunches, and incentives like a priority parking spot, an extra paid day off, or other rewards
- Connect with your employees privately one-on-one to let them know you appreciate their contributions
Not only do these methods help you build a rapport with your employees, but they effectively reinforce a company culture that values accomplishment and adequately rewards high-performing employees.
3. Optimize the way that you onboard employees
Much of your ability to build employee engagement starts with the onboarding process. A smooth onboarding process helps new employees acclimate to the company and learn where and how they can contribute.
It boosts employee retention so that turnover doesn’t hurt your team morale, cost you more money, or cause you to lose out on revenue. Improving the onboarding process also sets clear directives and expectations for each employee so that they don’t feel that they’re fending for themselves in a new environment.
A job becomes draining for employees when they’re just passing time without goals to accomplish. Add clarity to the onboarding process so that employees understand your company’s vision for 2023 and beyond.
Consider the 5 C’s as way to understand and accomplish the major tenets of onboarding:
- Clarify responsibilities, duties, and expectations for the position the new employee will fill
- Comply with standards that align with your company’s mission statement throughout the onboarding process
- Culture must remain a throughline to find the best candidates and create engagement
- Connect your new employee with mentors and resources to help with the transition
- Check in regularly to offer assistance and understand how they are adapting
Fine-tune your processes to make sure your onboarding process measures up to the objectives that you set at the beginning of 2023. Today, there are tools and processes available that can help with your onboarding:
- Hand out new hire bags with branded company clothing and useful office supplies
- Include a welcome packet with information about the history of the company, office layout, business directory, and information about the city for new hires from out of the area (if applicable)
- Automate your contracts and other documents
- Train your Human Resources (HR) team to offer a better onboarding experience
- Create social opportunities to ease the new employee’s transition
Formalize your onboarding process, build on it, and adjust it throughout the year until it fits your company’s needs.
4. Strengthen your team through challenges
Employees thrive when faced with healthy challenges. It takes the monotony out of the work week and pushes employees to cultivate perseverance to see goals through to the finish.
Get creative with the ways that you challenge your employees and it’ll help shape their efforts in the workplace.
Some ideas for executing this include:
- Regularly using mini challenges like brain teasers, riddles, puzzles, or exercises that stimulate critical thinking and problem-solving
- Challenging employees individually to set and achieve career development goals – and providing resources to help them
- Hosting challenges for sales or other goals and offering prizes or monetary bonuses
Adding challenges to your workplace will stimulate friendly competition in the workplace and keep employees captivated so that no two work weeks feel exactly the same.
Engaged employees foster a more dynamic workplace
Enhancing employee engagement is a goal that every company can accomplish in 2023 and should aspire toward.
These ideas will enable you to approach this goal with intention and clarity. The results will speak for themselves, as your employees will appreciate their job more, feel more valued, and everyone in the company will benefit from increased cooperation and productivity.
Ready to translate these ideas into a plan of action? Browse our best-selling promotional gifts for team members to get started.