3 Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged During Difficult Times
Meeting Your Organization’s People Challenges During the Covid-19 Crisis
May 1, 2020
Navigating your organization through the next phase of Covid-19
September 10, 20203 Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged During Difficult Times
While we continue to navigate the long path to things getting back to normal from Covid-19, keeping employees engaged remains a top priority with most organizations. Following are some tips to assist you along the way. I have also included links to related articles that I recommend.
1. Stay Connected
While employees are starting to make their way back to offices and factories, many continue to work from home. As we approach what will be our new normal, we should be prepared for many employees to continue working from home. This will create challenges for employees to experience the same sense of belonging as pre Covid-19 when they interacted with others in the workplace. They are many ways we can keep everyone connected such as:
- Regular workplace/video conference calls
- Celebrating employee milestones such as birthdays, work anniversaries and personal accomplishments
- Recognizing employee successes
- Social activities – virtual happy hours, in office and at home yoga, meditation or exercise sessions, trivia contests
2. Make Your Organization’s Success a Team Event
The most successful organizations leverage collective talent to achieve objectives. By encouraging creative thinking and having an open (virtual) door for presenting ideas, you can potentially tap into great ideas that your leadership team may not have considered. Plus, contributing to the success of an organization can be very motivating for employees. Consider the following:
- Communicate how you are receptive to staff ideas
- Use a centers of excellence approach to vet the best ideas and allow employees to self-select on participating. Examples could include efficiencies, new lines of business, diversity and inclusion, sales and marketing, client satisfaction…
- Recognize both great ideas and team contributions
3. Support Each Other
One of the things I’ve noticed in my HR Consulting work is that since Covid-19, emotions tend to bubble over at a much lower amount of work-related heat. I am convinced that the reason for this is often due to factors outside of work that are contributing to stress. Employees who are worried about Covid-19, becoming unemployed, feeling isolated, family challenges, and lacking in socialization tend to overreact when work problems develop. What used to be small challenges can appear much more serious and threatening. To lower the heat, try some of these suggestions:
- Ask employees to share tips on how they are overcoming distractions at home
- Be patient with staff who are struggling with being back in the workplace
- Establish a channel for sharing resources such as Ted Talks, podcasts, articles (like this one), employee engagement ideas, and motivational books
- Find ways for your extroverted staff to interact with other extroverted colleagues, so they can solve problems and build personal energy at the same time
- Understand that the root cause of missed deliverables or uncharacteristic emotional outbursts may be unrelated to work
- Be aware that as Gartner data shows, during periods of uncertainty, employee misconduct can increase by as much as 33%. Your focus on employee well-being can significantly lower this probability. Making sure your leadership team models the right behaviors will help as well.
Keeping employees engaged typically involves a significant amount of trial and error. Keep in mind that even when you miss the mark, employees will usually appreciate that you are making an effort.
If you are interested in learning more about how IgnitionHR can help you keep your employees engaged, click HERE to schedule a quick introductory phone call.
