Employee Engagement While Working From Home

Here we are over a year after the COVID-19 pandemic closed office doors throughout the country and employees were forced to quickly adapt to their new at home working environment. The pandemic has unquestionably strained employers and HR professionals to alter how they operate and added means to communicate. And although more and more individuals have the opportunity to become vaccinated, most organizations do not see the workplace going back to normal any time soon. If a business has not done so already, it is imperative to implement a remote work policy outlining expectations for work hours and necessary measures for security of company information and publish to the Employee Handbook.

Employers admit that keeping their employees engaged and productive has been challenging.

The pandemic has caused anxiety, added stress and dynamic changes, so it’s critical for HR leaders and management to determine methods for maintaining a motivated staff and making changes and improvements accordingly.

Here are some ideas to boost employee engagement:

Plan an outdoor event that is fun and not work-related
Send gifts that show you care, such as gift cards or a care package
Bring in a motivational speaker for an online forum
Develop regular online meetings with your entire team
Distribute limited edition items with your company logo to hand out to your team
Make sure that you are having regular meetings with each individual on your team, so they understand expectations and feel engaged
Develop a virtual “water cooler” space to share updates and non-work-related things
Establish online team building events such as a company culture workshop, karaoke night, movie night, online quiz, or online board game
Implement a mentoring program that is fulfilled with virtual check-ins
Launch webinars for your entire company to watch
Create a book club for employees to join
Launch a program for giving back as a company – decide on an organization or cause that you want to donate to
Create a way to recognize the achievements of employees and do so regularly
Provide a way to give positive peer-to-peer feedback
Encourage volunteering together outside of work in an outdoor space
Launch a remote employee engagement survey. Some questions you could ask:
• How can we improve your remote work experience?
• Do you enjoy working from home?
• Are you happy with your engagement level with fellow employees?
• Can you easily reach out to coworkers when you need to talk with them?
• What could help us improve daily communication?

Define What Employee Engagement Looks Like in Your Company

Engaged employees ask what they can do to improve things in the company
Engaged employees ask questions during meetings and online chats
Engaged employees meet and exceed expectations
Engaged employees ask for professional development opportunities
Engaged employees share exciting new ideas with their boss

Hiring and training new employees has been an additional challenge since this has been done virtually, for the most part. Be sure to check out Flex HR’s article “Recruiting in a post COVID world” for more details on the way that recruiting, hiring, and training efforts have transformed over the past year. For now, we list some tips below.

Hiring and Training in a Remote Environment
Make sure that any new hires meet the team through phone calls or video chats
Take a video of your office for candidates and new hires to see what the company and culture looks like
Arrange for in-person meetings, if possible
Slow down your training
Make sure that everything spoken in training is reinforced with directions that are written

Visit our Coronavirus pandemic page or more information on how businesses are managing their HR assets during the continued consequences of COVID-19.

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