The coronavirus pandemic has shifted the way that people engage with one another in the workplace. As many organisations start to return to the office and mixed work environments, it is important to think about what employee engagement will look like in 2021.
Engagement is a key factor to ensuring that your business is running efficiently and effectively. This
2017 study showed that organisations with engaged employees result in 17% greater profitability, 41% less absences and a 59% reduction in employee turnover. So what are some ways we can ensure that engagement is enhanced and maximised this year?
We are seeing three clear opportunities for organisations seeking to accelerate their productivity, performance and employee centred recovery. We call them the “Three Cs of Employee Engagement”:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration.
Communication
Don’t relegate communication to an afterthought. Keep your employees in the loop across a range of areas - from business performance and growth to strategy, product development and marketing. In fact, all areas of the business can benefit from active communication strategies as we settle into a “new normal” for 2021.
Creativity
How are you tapping and encouraging creativity across your business? Have you established an “ideas board” or created an innovation sharing competition? Are you inviting cross-team collaboration on new products and services? Are you building enterprise social networks that harness and build on employee needs to “be together”? Seek out new ways to bring employees together “for a purpose”.
Collaboration - the employee engagement hackathon
While we tend to think of hackathons as external programs, forward thinking organisations have taken the chance to double down on skill building, digital transformation and new product development by hosting internal
employee engagement hackathons. These 1-2 day events help develop your innovation “muscle” - building strength and resilience across the workforce while also generating ground breaking ideas and new business opportunities. Vitally, they help employees rally around a cause - a new product, business challenge or even a CSR initiative.
Contact us to find out how we can help drive new levels of employee engagement.