Employee engagement is vital for employers and businesses to achieve. When employees are fully engaged with the business, they feel more connected to it. This leads to increased productivity, motivation, loyalty and engaged employees also tend to motivate others to do the same. If your team consists of employees working remotely, engagement can be even more of an issue.

Engaged employees tend to perform better on every level. This boosts the success of teams, which ultimately spells great news for the organisation and everyone involved.

Let’s now look at some top tips for increasing employee engagement in the workplace and for those employees who are working remotely.

Encourage Recognition To Improve Employee Engagement

No matter what job role someone has within an organisation, everyone desires recognition for a job well done. It’s all about feeling appreciated for your efforts and recognition becomes more personal. Rather than simply being a number out on the factory floor, for example, employee recognition demonstrates that an individual is an important part of the team.

A culture of recognition should be encouraged. This doesn’t just apply to bosses and managers, but every employee in the company should recognise the efforts of others.

Hold Virtual Company Events

Company events are essentially team building and bonding events. If you have remote workers on your team, then virtual bonding sessions are the way to go to improve employee engagement. Virtual events can be broadcast over platforms like Zoom.

Here are just a few ideas to get you started:

• Virtual holiday events (e.g. Christmas party)
• Virtual team lunch
• Virtual wine night
• Virtual trivia game
• Virtual murder mystery game

That’s just a few ideas. A search online will provide countless ideas for virtual team building events.

Organise Virtual Workout Sessions To Improve Employee Engagement

Many roles in an organisation can involve sitting idle behind a desk for long periods. Getting fit and active is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and also leads to improved mental performance and increased cognitive activity.

Plan to hold regular virtual workout sessions to improve employee engagement. Have someone leading the session and everyone can join in via Zoom and virtually work out together. These sessions keep everyone fit, healthy and sharp and are also good team bonding sessions.

Anything that promotes “team” will naturally lead to higher employee engagement.

Create a Virtual Breakroom

Part of the fun of going to work is interacting with others in the workplace, especially during lunch breaks and other scheduled breaks. If some of all of the team are currently working remotely or from home, it can feel like a lonely and disconnected existence.

Virtual break rooms are one solution to improve employee engagement. Organise a virtual video conference once or twice a week during scheduled breaks so everyone can virtually get together and have a chat over lunch or a cup of coffee.

This can be a real morale booster, helping employees feel more included and connected to the organisation.

Improve Employee Engagement by Setting Friendly Challenges

Friendly challenges in the workplace promote team bonding and enhance employee engagement. Challenges could involve something that increases productivity within the workplace, or they could be a challenge that helps the community after hours, such as a plant a tree challenge or a clean up the local park challenge. As far as workplace challenges go, choose something where everyone is challenged to learn a new skill.

You could also come up with some friendly virtual challenges too if some of your team works remotely.

Now It’s Time To Implement your Employee Engagement Strategy

Employee engagement in the workplace is vital if you want to cultivate a productive and harmonious team environment where everyone strives to do their very best for the organisation as a whole. If you have employees who work remotely, then focusing on employee engagement is even more paramount.