Categories
Employee Experience

6 reasons why you should hire an employee experience manager

As both the workforce and the workplace continue to change, many organizations find themselves wondering whether they need an employee experience manager.

The employee experience is more complex than ever before, with people working remotely, based in the office, or taking a hybrid approach. You can have employees located anywhere in the world. Plus, you can also have freelancers or consultants filling out your workforce when you need it. 

All of this is a lot for HR teams to juggle and consider. Each situation has different needs and requires different management approaches. 

You also have to factor in employees’ individual needs based on their personal situation. This could include their health, location, neurodiversity, disability, household type, and even their personal preferences. 

The more of these things you factor in, the more likely you are to retain employees. 

However, it all adds up to a lot to manage on top of someone’s existing responsibilities. That’s why it helps to have a dedicated employee experience manager whose sole responsibility is to focus on these things.

77% of job seekers say that employee experience is a deciding factor when considering where to apply. So not investing in yours means you might miss out on the best candidate for a role. This then risks harming your business’s long-term growth.

Let’s take a deeper look at the benefits of having an employee experience manager in the new world of work:

Better customer experience

When it comes to existing employees, 85% of people agree that an improved employee experience, and higher employee engagement, means a better customer experience and higher customer satisfaction. 

When employees are happier and more engaged at work, they’re much more likely to provide a great customer experience. This is true for both new and old customers. It reflects well on your brand, meaning you’re more likely to get high reviews and repeat customers who spread the word about you and your business.

As a result, you get to earn more money, attract more customers, charge more, and grow faster.

Greater sense of belonging

25% of American employees feel they lack a sense of belonging in the workplace. And 40% of employees now feel isolated at work. 

When employees feel this way, their performance suffers and they’re more likely to leave. 

A lot more likely to leave: the turnover risk for someone who feels unhappy at work or like they don’t belong is 50%. How many of your employees can you risk feeling that way?

An employee experience manager prevents this high turnover risk. It’s their job to help employees feel like they do belong. 

They can organize things like employee groups, networking events, individual accomodations, whatever someone needs to feel appreciated.

And they can manage your feedback surveys to spot any problems before they evolve into bigger issues.

Reduced churn rate

As mentioned above, the risk of someone leaving if they’re unhappy at work is 50%.

Every time an employee who doesn’t feel like they belong leaves, it costs you money. You have to hire and train someone new to fill the gap they left behind. 

And if you haven’t fixed the issues the original employee faced, their replacement may not stay all that long either. This same cycle could end up repeating itself just a few months later.

More tailored approach to employees’ individual needs

HR teams are busier than ever before. That means they simply don’t have the time or the head space to take an individualized approach to someone’s needs. 

Having an employee experience manager whose job it is to focus on ensuring everyone can build a work-life they love means it doesn’t add to the stress of other HR team members. It complements the efforts of the larger people team and boosts employee satisfaction.

The more we learn about people and their different ways of working, the more important it is for us to tailor our approaches and our office environment to employees’ individual needs.

Some employees might work better in a busy, open-plan office environment, while others will thrive in silence. 

Not all employees are comfortable asking for what they need. Or, HR managers dealing with certain situations may not know what help is available. Having an employee experience manager who’s knowledgeable about these things is vital to helping workers achieve—and exceed—their potential.

There are so many different needs out there that understanding them all is a full-time job. An employee experience manager can monitor and manage employees’ needs without it distracting from other HR tasks.

Stay competitive

Innovation is moving faster than ever before. You need a highly engaged workforce and a low turnover rate to remain competitive. 

Otherwise, you risk spending too much money on the hiring process and on trying to retain your employees. These are resources you could be spending on growing and staying competitive.

Exceed employees’ expectations

As the world of work continues to change, employees’ expectations of their employers are growing. 

Many employees aren’t just going to accept the status quo anymore. They’re demanding better because they know they deserve it. 

An employee experience manager shows the outside world, and your employees, that you’re dedicated to helping your team achieve their potential and ensuring they’re happy and fulfilled in their roles. 

It also shows you’re a part of the modern world of work and not stuck in the Dark Ages like some businesses still are. 

And it differentiates you from your competitors—particularly if they don’t prioritize their employee experience. 

It could even be the difference between someone choosing to work for your business or going to your competitor.

Conclusion

An employee experience manager helps both you and your employees feel happy, fulfilled, and successful. 

They take the burden off of HR teams who may already be feeling overwhelmed with everything they have to juggle in the ever-changing world of work. 

And they ensure that employees are more productive by providing a better employee experience. This then allows your business to grow and stay competitive. 

Whether you’re considering hiring an employee experience manager or trying to succeed without one, having the right tools is key. With a one-stop shop for all your employee programs, events, announcements, files, calendars, and more, everyone can tap into the best your company has to offer from day one.

Plus, with automated surveys, data tracking, and analytics, you’ll have the power to optimize your employee experience in real-time. Don’t fall behind the pack and lose out on top talent. Visit us online today to learn more, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

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Categories
Employee Experience

HR software tools to get you more bang for your buck in 2023

HR software tools can be a huge asset to overworked people teams. Or, they can take up more time than they save you.

The HR software market was valued at more than $15 billion in 2020 and is expected to exceed $33 billion by 2028. There’s a tool for virtually every use case, from tracking employees’ details to payroll to perks.

And it’s no longer just about everyday employee management tools. For every $1 you spend on employee wellness, you get $1.50 in return. The bigger your workforce, the more this adds up.

So, let’s check out some of the HR software tools that can help you drive more value in 2023:

Core HR (personnel tracking)

Life is so much easier when all the information you need is in one place. 

Personnel tracking software enables you to store employees’ names, contact details, and other vital information together. 

Employees can update it when they need to, such as if they change addresses. 

If there’s something you need to change for a group of employees, such as when you move offices, it can be done with a few clicks instead of manually typing everything into a spreadsheet.

Time and attendance

If you need to track how long projects take for billable hours, or how long employees spend working for you, time tracking software can make things a lot easier.

Employees click a button to start and stop, then it works out how long projects take or how long they’re clocked in for. This helps you make more informed decisions about time frames and pricing for future projects.

Payroll

Payroll can be hugely complicated and time-consuming to manage. 

You can use payroll software to automate payments, benefits, taxes, and more. This enables you to focus on other areas of your business, safe in the knowledge your finances are handled efficiently.

Employee self-service/knowledge hub 

A new employee can have lots of questions. Even long-term employees can have questions if you’ve got a complicated product or have implemented something new. 

Having a one-stop shop where they can find everything they need to know about your products or services, how to do stuff, and why things happen a certain way, can ensure they get the answers they need when they need them. 

It’s much quicker than asking in a group chat thread or reaching out to a colleague directly. And it avoids anyone feeling awkward for asking basic questions.

Benefits administration

From healthcare to discounts, benefits can play a huge part in your employee experience, as well as in talent attraction and retention. 

Using HR software tools to manage employee benefits automates the process, making it easier to enroll people in programs and allowing them to see what they have access to.

Recognition and rewards

A little recognition goes a long way. It could be anything from a virtual high-five to more substantial rewards like brand discounts or goodies. Keeping them all in one place using HR software tools means employees won’t miss out because they didn’t know you offered certain perks.

Performance review

Using HR software tools to track performance reviews gives you somewhere to store what everyone has said in the past, and holds people accountable to their performance goals. It also gives them a place to track how well they’re doing in relation to their goals.

This makes future reviews easier because everything from previous reviews is documented in one place.

Applicant tracking

Some jobs can get hundreds, or even thousands, of applicants. Using applicant tracking software keeps everyone’s details in one place. 

Certain systems can also vet applicants’ resumes for you before a hiring manager looks at them. This reduces the admin burden, although keep in mind it can introduce another layer of bias.

Learning management

94% of the 3 to 4.5 million Americans who leave their jobs every month would stay if their employer offered them more long-term learning opportunities. 

Learning management software is a low-cost way to help employees grow skills that are relevant to their role and industry, allowing them to learn what they need at their own pace.

Coaching

As mentioned above, the ability to learn and grow is a huge part of why someone stays or leaves a company. 

Coaching software allows your coaches to track what they’ve worked on with their students, schedule appointments, share resources, and more.

Employee experience management

Only 16% of businesses use technology to track the progress and engagement of their employees. But knowing how your employees really feel is key to retention. Engaged employees are happier employees, after all.

Employee experience management software enables you to send out pulse surveys, gauging how employees feel in the moment. You can then act on the results to improve situations or fix any problems before they interfere with your business or cause you to lose employees.

No-code customized tool builders

Not everyone knows—or wants to know—how to write code. 

No-code customized tool builders enable employees to design what they want without needing to learn how to write code first. They can simply drag and drop elements where they want them to go. This saves countless hours and can reduce development costs, too.

Onboarding

Research by the Brandon Hall Group found that a great employee onboarding process might increase retention by as much as 82%. 

And a more organized onboarding process results in a 60% increase in yearly revenue.

HR software tools focused on onboarding help you lay out everything an employee needs to know when they join your company. You can then pace it so that they don’t feel bored or overwhelmed.

AI assistants to answer employee questions

AI is particularly useful for onboarding employees and can save other team members a lot of time when it comes to FAQs. 

To keep it personal, you can offer people the option to discuss things further with a colleague if the answers they get need more explanation.

Productivity

Effective task management can play a huge role in how productive employees are, whatever size your team is.

You can create Kanban boards, calendars, Gantt charts, or another form of tracking in most productivity tools. 

They’re often fully customizable to you and your needs. That means you can break down the tasks involved in a project, assign them to different people, and check whether they’re done or need to be worked on.

Internal talent/skills marketplace

Being able to connect people with relevant skills to another person or team within your business that needs them means you can solve problems sooner. It also streamlines the process of finding out who can help with something.

Conclusion 

There are so many forms of HR software tools out there that can help you manage your business better. This list should give you a solid place to start, but you’ll need to identify what your organization truly needs.

For instance, you may need a better way of keeping everyone connected and ensuring your employee programs and events are delivering results. In that case, a central hub with all your offerings, complete with real-time analytics, can help.

If you’d like to learn more about these types of HR software tools, we here at Workrowd would be happy to chat. Our platform makes it easy for every employee to tap into the things that can drive real value for them. Drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

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Categories
Employee Retention

6 benefits of employee retention that may surprise you

The Great Resignation made everyone painfully aware of the costs of turnover. While the financial impact is certainly significant, the benefits of employee retention extend far beyond your organization’s bank account.

According to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, 3 to 4.5 million US employees leave their jobs every month.

Even if you’re able to replace these leavers quickly, new employees take an average of eight months to hit full productivity. 

And let’s not forget that’s an average—for more technical roles or products, this will take longer.

It’s easy to focus on the downsides of turnover, but instead we’re going to look on the bright side. So what are the benefits of employee retention? Some of them may surprise you…

Save money 

Of course, we had to start here. Hiring is expensive, which means the more you have to do it, the less money you have to spend elsewhere.

It’s not just that, though. It’s all the time it takes for your new hire to get up to speed. They’re starting at a lower level of productivity than the person they replaced, which means they’re not earning you as much money.

And other team members are bringing in less, too, because they’re spending time training their new colleague. Not to mention all the money you had to spend on the recruitment process to hire that person in the first place.

When employees stay, you save on hiring costs and training costs. And this money can be re-invested in other areas of your business, like expansion, new technology, or further increasing employees’ skills so that they stay even longer.

More workplace friendships

In 1985, 50% of US employees had a workplace bestie. Gallup found that it’s now down to just 20%.

Despite this, 46% of workers believe that friends at work are important to their happiness. Having a best friend at work also results in a 36% reduction in safety incidents, 7% more engaged customers, and 12% higher profit.

Plus, there are the additional benefits to employee mental and physical wellbeing, which extend far beyond your business and long into workers’ futures, too.

If there’s frequent turnover at your organization, there will be fewer friendships and you’ll see the impact across the organization. What’s more, the bonds that do form may be weaker since people only stay for a short time.

Strengthened workplace relationships that lead to better business outcomes is one of the most frequently overlooked benefits of employee retention.

Higher morale

A few years ago, I took a job somewhere working for someone I knew. 

In the first week, a few people from different departments were let go, but we assumed our team was fine.

We were very, very wrong.

By the end of my second week there, the person who’d hired me had been let go, too.

So had several more people.

There was a revolving door of employees, leading to low morale and output. Nobody wanted to be there, but no one really saw a way out, either.

Every time someone was fired—often with little to no explanation—we all looked around, wondering who’d be next. Was it us?

Nobody felt able to speak out. Morale, mood, and confidence were all pretty low. All because we worked in an environment defined by fear.

When employees feel safe, they stay for longer, and—surprise surprise—they’re happier doing their jobs, too!

Better customer experience

Look after your employees and they’ll look after your customers, as Richard Branson famously said.

When your employees are happy, they’re more likely to want to make your customers happy, too. 

When they hate their jobs, they’re going to go through the motions and do little to nothing else to uplift the people they deal with. 

Moods of any kind are contagious, which means happy employees are more likely to leave your customers smiling, too.

This has the opposite effect as well, though. If someone is in a bad mood because of their job, they could take that out on a customer.

A couple of years ago, I was looking to update my phone contract. I called my carrier and shared with them some cheaper deals I’d found with competitors. 

Despite having been this company’s customer for over a decade, the person I spoke to insisted they had the best coverage in the country (they didn’t) and that they couldn’t offer a cheaper rate (they’d done it before…). 

And when I said I wanted to leave, he told me the wrong process.

While I had dealt with far nicer people from the same company in my ten years as their customer, it’s that experience that sticks out to me and caused me to hang up on him and jump to another provider ten minutes later.

One of the benefits of employee retention is that the effort you put into retaining folks will show up in their performance. It will create a self-reinforcing process: when you make your employees happy, they’ll make your customers happy. Obviously, that should then make you happy!

Better reviews

Since happier employees provide better customer service, is it any wonder that when employees stick around customers leave more complimentary reviews?

This has a ripple effect on your business, leading to more prospects and happier customers.

Most people research businesses before contacting them these days, which means the more positive reviews you have, the better.

How employees deal with customers is often one of the things highlighted in reviews, too. So you want them to leave a lasting, positive impression on the customer and anyone reading their review.

Growing internal knowledge and skills

Don’t underestimate the value of internal knowledge and skills, particularly in businesses with steep learning curves. 

The more complicated your infrastructure is, the longer it takes someone to understand it all. 

When employees stick around, they can train new people in how it works and hopefully get them up to speed faster. 

Their deeper understanding also means they can help you find solutions faster, saving you even more time and money.

A growing institutional knowledge base is one of the most important benefits of employee retention in today’s competitive market.

Conclusion 

The benefits of employee retention are virtually endless; there’s very little downside to retaining your top talent.

They have brand knowledge that will take time for a new person to learn. This knowledge can be the difference between solving a problem right away, or spending days, weeks, or even months scratching their head.

There’s also the impact it has on employee morale. When employees feel happy and safe in their roles, it rubs off on their colleagues and everyone works harder and collaborates better.

If you want to tap more deeply into the benefits of employee retention at your organization, consider incorporating some helpful tools. By ensuring every one of your team members can get fully immersed in all your employee offerings from day one, Workrowd makes it easy to drive retention and track what’s working.

Visit us online or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more. We love making employees happy just as much as you do.

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Employee Experience

Upgrade your employee experience survey with these 7 tips

The employee experience survey has become a pretty standard tool for people teams in recent years. Many companies now send a giant, all-encompassing engagement survey once or twice per year. 

However, this strategy isn’t effective anymore, and for a lot of organizations, it never was. To stay competitive, you need to switch up your approach.

If you’re not convinced, just consider the facts. There’s a huge disparity between how employees view these surveys and what managers think.

48% of senior managers find surveys highly valuable, yet 45% of employees feel they have little to no value. 

52% of senior managers think surveys provide a very accurate assessment, while 48% of employees say they don’t. 

Which explains why 29% of employees think they’re pointless and only 1/5 of them believe their manager would act on concerns raised in an employee experience survey. They’re probably right; managers estimate they only spend 2-5 days per year on activities relating to their annual engagement survey.

Which kind of makes you wonder: what’s the point?

And is there a better alternative?

Here are some ways to get more value out of your employee experience survey.

Minimize admin work 

A quarter of managers see employee experience surveys as a box-checking exercise. 

This is why minimizing how much admin work they have to do is key. If they don’t view your employee experience survey as useful, they’re never going to take the responses seriously.

This means nothing will change, which brings us back to the question above. What’s the point if there’s no difference between before and after your employee experience survey?

Embrace automated data collection and analysis

When you have an automated process to distribute your employee experience survey and analyze the data coming in, everything becomes easier. Being able to ‘set it and forget it’ frees up more time to review the results. 

Not only that, but it becomes easier to make changes in response to the data. Team members can see everything they need to know at a glance, so there’s no question about where to focus.

And doesn’t everyone want to spend more of their time making a difference rather than staring at spreadsheets?

Track the impact of your employee groups, programs, and events

Investing time and money into employee initiatives is a waste if you can’t measure the impact they have. That’s why it’s so important to monitor their results. Unfortunately, many organizations gloss over or completely skip this topic in their employee experience survey.

When you have up-to-date data measuring how your groups, programs, and events are performing, you can make the most of your energy and budget. What’s more, using this data to optimize your employee experience can help you make big strides on retention and engagement.

Shorten the time between surveying and changes happening

When managers have lots of answers to read, then analyze, it can take a really long time. It’s no wonder 27% of managers never go through them at all – it takes too long!

By automating the analysis piece, managers can skip right to acting on the results. This then becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Because changes were made in response to their input, employees will be more likely to complete future surveys.

No one wants to wait a year to see whether their voice was heard. Shortening the timeline reduces frustrations, and helps everyone feel more valued and engaged.

Make it easier and quicker to fill in

Think about the last time a brand you love sent you a customer feedback survey. Wanting to help out, you clicked it, only to find it was really long. By the end, you’d stopped typing the in-depth answers they were looking for, if you finished it at all.

The abandonment rate for surveys that take more than 7-8 minutes to fill in is 20%. And only 30% of employees actually fill in surveys. Which isn’t great if you want to get a complete picture of what’s happening in your workforce.

It makes sense, though. Our attention spans are short, and we don’t have that much time. Our working days are filled with, well, work. It’s much easier to find time to complete a short, well-designed survey, than a long, hard to follow one.

For example, Workrowd’s automated feedback questionnaires typically take 2-3 minutes to complete and ask just 5-10 questions.

Sending them out automatically after events and program sessions means data gets collected regularly, while brief pulse surveys help complete the picture. Speaking of which…

Spread out your opportunities to collect data

Things can change quickly when you’re in business, especially in the digital age. 

So, if you’re only collecting data once in a blue moon (which is about every 2-3 years), you’re not going to get accurate insight into how your employees feel. Especially when some employees won’t stick around that long, partially because their input isn’t valued.

Employees want to feel respected. Regularly collecting information on their experience at work is one way you can show them that you really are listening, not treating surveys as a box-checking exercise.

You don’t want to be bothering people every week, obviously, but the shorter the surveys, and the easier they are to fill in, the more often you can send them without employees feeling annoyed or interrupted. 

And you’ll get more relevant, timely data as a result. This also prevents problems from lingering, as you’re more likely to notice them as they appear.

Combining data from a short employee experience survey with feedback from recent events and activities can give you the insight you need to succeed in today’s tight talent market.

Use it to inspire new ideas

It’s all very well and good sending an employee experience survey, but if you’re not doing anything with the feedback, it can easily backfire. As mentioned above, you’ll see low participation, and people may even leave if their input is repeatedly ignored.

Even if what people come back with is uncomfortable to hear, it’s important to listen. You can use the feedback to improve systems that aren’t working, look for ways you can embrace and encourage deeper inclusion, and highlight good things happening within your business.

Conclusion 

Revamping your employee experience survey strategy can help you identify ways to improve. It can also show you where you should be celebrating how great your staff and business are.

If reimagining your relationship with your employee experience survey is of interest to you this year, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com. Our lightweight tools automate the process of collecting employee experience data, then lay the results out for you in readable, real-time dashboards.

Don’t waste your time creating and promoting another long survey this year, only to have to slog through overwhelming piles of data. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of Workrowd’s tool suite to make your life easier and delight employees across your organization.

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Categories
Employee Retention

Boost employee satisfaction in 2023 with these 9 strategies

Recent findings show that only 21.6% of office-based workers are happy with their work environments. That’s compared to 28.3% of hybrid employees, and 35.4% of people who are fully remote. Even for this last group, the rate of employee satisfaction remains low.

But it gets worse.

Just 17.1% of in-office employees are happy with their work-life balance, compared to 25.1% of hybrid workers and 33.2% of remote employees.

Ouch.

If you’re looking to boost employee satisfaction in 2023, look no further. These tips will help your employees feel more satisfied in their roles regardless of your business size.

Send an employee experience survey

Employee experience surveys help you identify issues impacting team members.

How do they feel about what’s happening in your business? What’s their day-to-day experience? What improvements would they like to see?

The more often you send them, the more useful the results will be (as long as you keep them short!).

And, if you automate the process of analyzing the data, you can take action sooner, too.

For example, a tool like Workrowd sends short feedback requests after every event or session your company organizes, along with quick, intermittent pulse surveys. The software combines this with activity tracking and usage data (e.g. RSVPs) to give you real-time dashboards showing employee satisfaction levels.

Make them feel included in discussions and developments

When big changes happen within a business, employees are often the last to know. This can lead to them feeling betrayed, let down, or invisible, even though they’re the ones the changes affect the most.

Being transparent about what’s happening, whether it’s good or bad, helps them feel included.

Even if you don’t take every piece of their feedback, ensuring they have a voice shows you value them and their contributions to the organization.

Give employees the chance to be themselves

Four out of five employed Americans report that they feel seen at work for who they really are, rather than just a stereotype. However, this number is heavily skewed by the fact that 93% of white men agreed with this statement. In contrast, only 73% of BIPOC women feel the same.

Similarly, LGBTQ+ employees rank where they work 6% lower than non-LGBTQ+ peers. Transgender employees rate their employee experience the lowest, at just 3.43 out of 5.

Many employees from underrepresented communities feel the need to hide, mask, or code-switch in the workplace. It’s exhausting and an additional source of stress.

To improve this result at your company, you need an open culture. One where employees feel comfortable being themselves, whatever their background. One where people aren’t assumed to be one thing or another, and are accepted for who they actually are.

As a leader, it’s your job to set that example. Learn how to be a real ally. Share your experiences and get involved. 

The more you show that you really do care, the more likely your employees will be to feel comfortable.

Encourage workplace friendships

60% of employees believe their colleagues make the biggest difference to their workplace happiness. That means if you’re not facilitating coworker relationships, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to increase employee satisfaction.

It’s not just about forced socializing within a team. It’s also about helping employees find people with similar interests they can connect with. This makes them feel like they belong in the workplace and increases the likelihood they’ll stay.

Set clear career paths

Telling an employee they deserve a promotion is one thing. Creating a path to that promotion shows you’re serious about them progressing in their role.

A vague plan is unlikely to ever happen because nobody knows what steps they need to take to get there. It’s also easier to forget.

A clear path, meanwhile, shows them you value them and want to keep their skills and knowledge on the team.

Offer mentoring opportunities

Sometimes an employee needs a little guidance to help them get to the next step in their career. Mentoring is a great way to help them achieve this because they can learn from someone who’s been in a similar situation.

Being a mentor offers a lot of benefits, too. It’s a way for people to give back to their colleagues, build confidence, reinforce knowledge, and feel good about helping someone.

Make breaks a priority, not an afterthought or reward

Breaks shouldn’t be treated as a reward for achieving something. They should be a vital part of getting things done!

The longer we work without a break, the more our productivity and ability to concentrate suffers.

Even a quick, 40-second micro-break helps us recharge and perform better in our roles. 40 seconds!

Ideally, it’s best to take longer than that a few times a day, though. You can’t eat your lunch or drink a coffee in 40 seconds.

Ensuring employees eat their lunch away from their desk is one way for them to get a longer break. Or they could go for a walk to a local park, play with a pet, or read a book. Anything that’s not work-related can help clear their head and increase employee satisfaction.

Reward them

A little reward goes a long way. It doesn’t have to be anything big, or even something that holds monetary value. 

A simple and genuine ‘thank you’ when someone’s done a great job can have a major impact on employee satisfaction.

Grow creative skills

The more creativity and control we have in a role, the happier we’re likely to be. These things can only happen in a supportive, inclusive environment. They’re like muscles; the more someone uses them, the better they get at doing so. 

If someone has never experienced control in a role before, they’re going to need some guidance to help them manage that control. 

If they’re not used to their ideas being accepted and encouraged, it’ll take time for their ability to generate ideas to develop. 

Walking meetings are a good way to get the mind and body going, and can lead to more ideas and better conclusions, too. 

As there’s often a set duration or path for a meeting, it can help attendees stay on track and come to better solutions at the end, too.

And, since you’re not talking face-to-face like you would in a meeting room, it can feel less confrontational, making it easier to talk about more challenging topics.

Conclusion 

A little bit of support can make a big difference when it comes to employee satisfaction. This could come in the form of changing how you communicate with employees, offering more opportunities to grow their skills, or letting them do something good for themselves and their community.

In order to effectively increase employee satisfaction over time, you need the right tools. Workrowd makes it easy to connect every team member to the best your organization has to offer, no matter where or when they work. Plus, with real-time analytics, you’ll always know where you can improve.

If you want to do more in less time this year, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com. Our lightweight tool suite is a snap to set up, and will have you on the road to higher employee satisfaction in no time.

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Employee Engagement

9 indicators of successful employee engagement programs

Check out part 1 of this post covering signs your employee engagement programs need a makeover HERE. When you’re running successful employee engagement programs, it can have huge benefits for your business. In the new world of work, these efforts that used to be ‘nice to haves’ have quickly become ‘need to haves’.

But what makes for successful employee engagement programs? And how do you know whether yours are driving results? Here are some things to look out for:

Employees want to join in

When employees want to be a part of your programs, it’s a really good sign. It means they feel like your programs could make a difference to their lives, either personally or professionally.

Another sign of successful employee engagement programs is when people share their enthusiasm with their colleagues. This excitement is contagious and can spread the word without you needing to do as much promotion.

The more everyone talks about the benefits of participating, the more employees you’ll have who want to join in. People don’t like to feel like they’re missing out and will want to experience the benefits, too.

Everyone has a community where they belong

72% of employees feel lonely at least once per month. The same percentage of remote workers feel lonelier than they did when they worked in an office.

As well as being a sad statistic, the truth is that it’s also scary and dangerous. Loneliness is bad for our mental and physical health. It causes everything from anxiety, to a weakened immune system, to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Most people probably won’t admit to their colleagues that they feel this way. They may not even realize the impact their loneliness could have on their long-term health.

Even without these discussions or this awareness though, successful employee engagement programs help mitigate workplace loneliness. People can find colleagues nearby to chat over coffee with; pet sit so that they can travel more; or co-work together in a local space. 

All these things help employees feel more connected to their teammates and organization, reducing the detrimental impacts of loneliness.

Employee program leaders aren’t drowning in admin work

There may be some people out there who like admin work (I’m not one of them). Regardless, there’s no denying how much it can eat into your time and mean you produce less as a result.

Reducing admin time for employee program leaders gives them more time and energy for their daily tasks while still championing engagement. With the right tools, they can do more in less time, and avoid burning out.

So instead of manually sending reminders about the next event, they can plan interesting discussions, connect with other engagement leaders, or get to know participants better. When tedious, time-consuming tasks are automated, it’s much easier to build successful employee engagement programs.

There’s a clear transition process in place

It’s common when a program or group leader leaves for things to fall apart. A successful employee engagement programs management solution means this doesn’t happen. It ensures there are already steps in place to facilitate a handover, and to make it as seamless as possible.

One thing you can do to help with this is create a list of potential leaders to step in when someone leaves. Or, you could always have a deputy leader who’s the natural next person to fill the position.

Whomever takes over needs to know where all the files are and have permission to access/edit them.

They also need access to any policies or documents which explain how the program or group operates. That way, they’ll know what’s expected of them as a leader and of group members, and can update things if/when required.

Having a central repository can go a long way towards helping you build successful employee engagement programs. That way, leaders, participants, and executives all know exactly where to look when they need something.

Every aspect is intuitive and user-friendly

The most important thing about a great user experience is that it just works. It’s so perfectly organized and logical that people barely have to think about it.

This is sometimes easier said than done, but when employees know where to find the latest information, they can log in to get what they want, maybe find something else that’s also of interest to them, then continue with their day.

It’s simple, it’s intuitive, and it allows them to make the most of your successful employee engagement programs with the least amount of effort.

What’s more, it doesn’t interrupt them. Rather than receiving emails and chat notifications about a free fitness class while trying to focus on a big project, they can learn what’s happening when it’s convenient for them.

They offer people opportunities to develop their skills

Many employees are always on the lookout for ways to improve their skills, grow in their roles, and advance their careers. If they don’t feel they can do that at your organization, they’re more likely to leave.

Successful employee engagement programs provide team members who want to grow their skills access to relevant training. They can also connect them to mentors or coaches. 

They improve communication

When you encourage employees to interact with people from other areas of the business, it can improve relationships between different departments. 

This makes collaboration much easier. It also helps prevent us vs. them mentalities and myths that can occur between different departments.

Successful employee engagement programs build cross-team links that ensure your business can stay agile and competitive.

You can track their effectiveness

If you want successful employee engagement programs, it’s important to be able to track their effectiveness. That’s how you know what you’re doing is benefitting your business and your staff. 

Without any trackable metrics, your programs could be a huge waste of time and money. You wouldn’t know it, though, because you would have no way of measuring.

With metrics, you can clearly see what’s working and what isn’t. It’s important that you’re pulling information from a variety of sources and at different points in time. Relying on a once or twice yearly engagement survey won’t get you the data you need.

With automated, real-time analytics, you always know which programs are driving results, and which need some extra support. You can then use that information to make more informed decisions and maximize your ROI.

They benefit your business

The most successful employee engagement programs benefit businesses in ways both big and small. 

They lead to employees being happier and more productive because they feel like you care about them beyond daily workplace activities. It’s a reciprocal relationship. And the more you foster that relationship, the more success you’ll both experience.

If you’re interested in building more successful employee engagement programs this year, Workrowd can help. With a one-stop shop for marketing, managing, and measuring all of your programs, groups, and events, everything you need is right at your fingertips.

Send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more. We’d love to discuss how some easy-to-implement tools can take your employee engagement programs to the next level in 2023.

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Employee Engagement

8 signs your employee engagement programs need a makeover

From professional development to diversity and inclusion, employee engagement programs are key to retention. Beyond that, they’re also a powerful, underutilized tool that can benefit almost every area of your business.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to set up employee engagement programs with the best intentions, only to get distracted by other tasks. As a result, they never reach their full potential and fail to drive ROI. 

Or, they’re implemented and nobody even knows they’re a thing. Obviously, in this case, no one gets to experience any of the benefits.

Here are some key signs your employee engagement programs need a makeover in 2023. Check back next week for what to do about it!

No one uses them—or even knows they exist

Maybe your employee engagement programs have lots of people signed up, but nobody’s engaged. Or nobody joins them in the first place. Either way, this is problematic.

Ineffective employee engagement programs can have a tremendous impact on a person’s ability to feel like part of the team. Beyond that, it can even have a detrimental effect on their career trajectory. 

It’s a story the Workrowd team has heard all too often. The company’s founder, Rachel Goor, notes:

“Especially in remote and hybrid environments, it’s easy for employees to miss out on opportunities to build a better work life. For instance, we recently learned about an individual who found out three years into her tenure with a company that there was a mentoring program she could have joined from day one. She was burned out and ended up leaving, but tapping into this great initiative that the company was already running could have completely transformed her experience.”

Three years of growth missed out on all because no one connected her to a program that already existed.

Running them is detrimental to leaders’ careers

If you have employee engagement programs led by team members (e.g. ERGs), supporting them is crucial.

Running any sort of community is a huge commitment and can really eat into their time. Trying to do that alongside their full-time job makes things even more challenging. Either their program or their job suffers.

And of course, this could lead to adverse outcomes for these engagement champions. It leaves them less time for their job responsibilities, despite their significant contributions to company culture.

Rachel noted another example where:

“An employee was so passionate about social impact efforts that she took it upon herself to personally spearhead things for two years. She, too, ended up leaving, because the company had no way to support or empower her.”

It must’ve been heartbreaking for that individual to put everything into building opportunities for her colleagues to give back, positively influence the company’s culture, but then have to leave because her personal development suffered as a result.

Things fall apart when someone leaves

At some point, a leader or champion of one or more of your employee engagement programs is going to leave. It may be because they’ve found an opportunity elsewhere, they’re moving, or they’re retiring. If there’s no handover process in place, it can cause programs to fall apart.

This can come down to poor organization or limited knowledge transfer. Your program then falters and has to start again from scratch, if at all. This leaves a lot of opportunities and potentially disappointed employees behind.

Even if your program has seen high engagement up to this point, it’s unlikely things will stay that way if no one is trained to take over and they don’t know where to find all the information they need. 

Any initiative’s atmosphere is directly influenced by the people running it. The only way to maintain that is for a new leader to hit the ground running when they take over.

You’re not effectively tracking their impact

It’s really important to have some form of data collection. Without it, you won’t know what’s working, what’s not, and where you can improve. How do you know what difference your employee engagement programs are making? More importantly, how do you know where to invest your time and money moving forward?

It doesn’t just have to be hard numbers, of course. Anecdotes about employees’ improved confidence, skills, or new contacts they’ve met because of employee engagement programs can be just as powerful. 

But if there’s nowhere for them to share those stories, how will you ever hear about them?

You don’t market or promote them 

Quite often, you think you’re talking a lot about something, but nobody has heard you talk about it at all. This is common when you work in marketing, and marketing internal initiatives is no different. 

So, while you may think you’re shouting, only a handful of people have probably heard about your employee engagement programs.

You need to actively promote your initiatives to new employees, as well as existing employees looking for something new. Promote them in as many places as possible, including in print, by word-of-mouth, and beyond.

Employees may not join the first time they hear about a group, program, or event. Over time though, they may change their minds.

They may realize the benefits of being a part of them and want to join in, too. Therefore, you need to talk about your employee engagement programs and their benefits as much as possible to encourage participation.

The organizational system is a mess

When employee engagement programs are managed manually, it makes the whole process clunkier. Almost every other part of our lives can be automated now. Employees expect a seamless experience for groups and events at work just as they do in their outside lives. Are you delivering?

Tasks like signing up, sharing files, organizing meetings, RSVPing for events, and sending reminders should be as easy as possible. This is true for both program leaders and for members and participants as well. This only happens when there’s a clear, easy-to-follow system in place.

Lack of regionalization/localization

What appeals to someone in one country will be different from what appeals to someone in another. Even countries that speak the same language can have dramatic cultural differences. (Like the US and the UK, for example.)

Being aware of these differences is important.

It’s also important to consider that some employees will prefer to meet in person. If they work remotely, it’s a great opportunity for them to get out of the house and connect with people.

Insufficient support/buy-in from the company 

It’s all too easy for a company to decide to launch employee engagement programs, give employees the chance to run them, then abandon them, expecting employees to do all the work. 

Your programs still need some sort of support from the business for them to be a success. 

Many aspects of culture come from the top, and this includes the adoption of employee engagement programs. That’s the only way businesses will experience the full benefits of them.

If initiatives are left with small or non-existent budgets, or a disengaged/non-existent executive sponsor, they’re unlikely to deliver the results you’d hoped for.

Conclusion

An effective employee engagement programs strategy can lead to positive changes in employees’ skills, networks, and career paths. 

However, when they’re done wrong, they can feel like a waste of time and resources for everyone.

If you’d like to ensure you’re maximizing the value of your employee engagement programs in 2023, Workrowd can help. Tune in next week for a post on solutions. Or, reach out to us directly to explore easy-to-implement tools to solve your engagement challenges.

Our one-stop platform has everything you need to successfully market, manage, and measure your employee engagement programs to drive greater impact. Learn more by visiting us online, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

Check out part 2 of this post covering solutions to improve the effectiveness of your employee engagement programs HERE.

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Learning & Development

7 steps to help you get employee development planning right

Deciding on our futures can be a challenging and daunting prospect. Having someone to guide us and offer advice can help us figure out the right direction. That’s why it’s so important to get employee development planning right.

Managers are in a key position to help with this because employees trust them, they understand their employees’ strengths, and they know what opportunities are available within the business.

Employees may find that as they explore a particular path, it’s not for them. But they don’t know unless they try, and they’re much more likely to make the right decision with someone to help them along the way. The more information they have when they choose their path, the more likely they are to choose the right option the first time.

Let’s take a look at what you need to consider when it comes to employee development planning:

What are their skills?

Technical skills are, and always will be, important. This goes further than that, though. 

How are their communication skills? Do they want to improve them, or would they be better off spending their time elsewhere?

Knowing what their current skills are gives you a direction to start with that can then be influenced by my next point…

What are they interested in?

Being good at something and enjoying something are two very different things. Someone may be good at dealing with conflict, but they may dislike dealing with people. If you know someone like this, they’re probably not a great fit to be a manager. They’ll end up finding it increasingly frustrating over time.

Instead, you want to find that sweet spot between what employees enjoy and what their skills are.

Someone who enjoys going deep on a particular topic and likes poking holes in things would be a great subject matter expert, for example.

The more interested someone is in something, the more work they’ll put into learning the skills required to excel in a particular role. This will then lead to bigger benefits for your business.

Where do they need to grow?

To progress in our careers, we all need to grow in one way or another. It could be by learning a new programming language, a new social media platform, or leadership skills.

Having a clear list of areas to focus on as a result of employee development planning gives team members a clear idea of what direction to head in. It can essentially create a checklist of what they need to work on to hit their goals. This can help to motivate them and keep them focused.

What’s a hard no?

We all have our non-negotiables. For me, it’s noisy office environments. I just can’t concentrate in them, and they trigger my chronic pain.

Keeping in mind what someone doesn’t want to do narrows down the list of options when it comes to employee development planning. This can make the decision-making process a bit easier. 

It doesn’t matter how great your employee is, or how well they perform in a particular position. They’ll never enjoy a role that requires them to do things that make them uncomfortable or unhappy.

No amount of money, status, or training will make up for their discomfort. It’s therefore better to rule this out early so that you don’t risk losing them. If they’re doing something that goes against their values, health, or comfort, they’ll be much more likely to leave.

Can you offer them what they need?

If an employee needs to grow certain skills to achieve their career goals, can you help them get there? Does your business have the opportunities and roles that they need? 

If the answer is no, could you create them? If you don’t know how, can you find the answers elsewhere, either from your network or by researching?

When an employee is a great fit for your business, you don’t want to lose them because you can’t offer what they need. You’ll end up losing their loyalty and their company knowledge, and it’ll cost you more money to hire and train a new employee.

Finding external trainers and creating new programs helps you help that employee while future-proofing your business. If any other employees come along with similar needs as you continue to grow, you’ll be ready. Effective employee development planning extends beyond just one individual.

Make your plan

When you’ve answered all these questions, it’s time to create a plan. What do they need to learn, and by when? Setting deadlines makes it easier for employees to stay motivated. It also helps you track what’s happening and when, and gives you both something to work toward.

Consider setting SMART goals:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-sensitive

While the concept is one we’ve all heard ad nauseam, the specificity of SMART goals is what’s important. They’re more likely to be successful because you can pinpoint if, when, and how something is working. In this case, you can assess how effective your employee development planning has been.

Review your plan

Reviewing the results of your employee development planning process periodically ensures that it still aligns with what team members want to achieve. If they’ve hit any roadblocks, you can help them overcome them or alter the plan to fit their needs.

Alternatively, the employee may find that they no longer want to work toward the same goal. Perhaps their career trajectory has changed. That’s all fine and acceptable. 

It’s much better for them to realize this and come out and say it. That way, you can work together to change the direction, rather than risk losing them. If they don’t feel like they can communicate with you about how they’re feeling, they may consider leaving.

Think of the plan as scaffolding, i.e. a guide. What happens inside it can change based on employees’ needs as you continue to build together.

Conclusion 

Managers’ trusted and knowledgeable roles mean they’re in powerful positions to help with effective employee development planning. While paths can change, managers can use the information they have on employees and the business to make suggestions.

Helping employees identify areas where they can grow their skills can benefit everyone. Supporting them to lean into their strengths and work on weaknesses can lead to better long-term career outcomes as well.

Employee development planning can be tough. The work doesn’t end with the plan, though. You have to provide employees with ample opportunities to pursue their stated learning goals. Then, you have to make it easy for them to engage.

By organizing all your learning groups, programs, and events in one place with Workrowd, you can connect every team member to the resources they need to succeed. Plus, with real-time analytics, you’ll always know which initiatives are driving results for team members.

If you’d like to learn more and explore how Workrowd can accelerate the impact of your employee development planning, send a note to hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to chat and see how we can collaborate.

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Learning & Development

Employee training & development ideas to make 2023 a success

Employee training and development is important for upskilling your employees, making them better at their jobs, and driving retention.

It doesn’t have to come in the form of a sit-down class like we’re back at school, though. Shudder. 

Not everyone learns that way. And the longer someone must sit still in a training session like that, the less likely they are to pay attention or remember anything that was covered.

There are plenty of ways to make employee training and development engaging, interactive, and maybe even fun. No matter what industry you and your employees are in.

Here are some ways to help your employees grow their skills in 2023:

Books

Books are great because they allow us to learn at our own pace and refer to information easily. 

We can read them on an e-reader with a backlight; on our phones while we’re traveling; or as a physical copy. And we can annotate them or highlight passages that are interesting or relevant to us in any of these forms. 

If you’ve got a Kindle, for example, it can sync with Goodreads and remember your highlighted passages.

However, as an author and avid reader, one of my pet peeves is book recommendations. Most people explain why they liked the book, not what the person they’re talking to could get out of reading it. 

So, before you recommend a book, consider:

  • What skills the other person could learn
  • How it relates to their current or future role
  • The book’s writing style—is it chatty and fast-paced? Or is it formal and academic? Which would they prefer?
  • Length—is it a quick read or does it take time to digest? Do they have the time or patience for something longer/heavier?

Different types of books appeal to different people. Just because you found something game-changing, that doesn’t mean everyone else will. 

As part of this, you could put together a book club. But beware that everyone reads at different paces and people who enjoy reading for fun may prefer to learn by other means. 

Even for avid nonfiction readers like myself, something like a book club can turn a fun hobby into a chore if it’s not done right. Solicit input from team members to help you effectively incorporate books into your employee training and development program.

Emails and downloadable guides

Emails are great for drip-feeding information. This makes them a useful tool for employee training and development.

They take a few minutes to read, then the recipient can carry on with their day. Then the next training comes the following day or week, and so on.

Downloadable guides, meanwhile, are a longer version of this. They’re often used as sales lead magnets, but they can also be used internally for employee training and development. 

Quizzes

Remember those personality quizzes that used to be in magazines and were strangely addictive? The ones that are still all over Buzzfeed and other corners of the internet? 

Just me? Okay…

Well, less personality-focused, more fact-based quizzes, are a fun, engaging way to help employees learn and retain information. 

And when you combine them with my next point, the lessons become more memorable because employees can see what they need to do.

Show examples

Listening to someone talk about what to do or not do can get tedious quickly. Relatable examples help employees visualize what they’re trying to learn. 

This could come in the form of perfect examples, or not-so-perfect examples.

In a group environment, you could discuss why something works or doesn’t work, encouraging participation so that employees can share their trains of thought and understand what’s needed for the skills they’re trying to learn. 

This can also support employee training and development around soft skills, like analysis and feedback, alongside the skill they’re actively trying to build.

Live webinars and workshops

There’s something magical about a live workshop. Everyone’s working together on the same thing, at the same time, making a concentrated effort to better themselves in one area. The engagement can be contagious, too.

A webinar being live can also mean that the employee is more likely to carve out specific time to take part because they know exactly when it’s going to happen and can work the rest of their day around it, rather than working their employee training and development around everything else.

Virtual summits

Think of virtual summits like an all-day version of a live webinar.

If employees can’t travel to an event in-person, they offer an opportunity for them to grow their skills from the comfort of their own desk.

Some are free to watch live, with replays available for 24 hours. After that, there’s a fee. 

Summits often focus on one area, and they sometimes also include virtual networking. This means employee can grow their skills and get to know useful industry contacts for later. 

Groups

Employee groups help connect employees with similar interests. This makes them powerful for someone looking to expand their skills. They don’t need to search for external trainers—they’ve got a readymade group of people they can go to for answers!

If no group exists for their area of interest, they could create it, and invite others who share that interest to take part. 

If it’s a valuable workplace skill, there are bound to be others within your business who want to learn it too. Bottom up efforts like these can be an important part of your employee training and development program.

Mentoring and coaching

Mentoring and coaching programs can provide employees with specific, guided, hands-on tutelage. 

This can grow their skills faster because it’s concentrated on what they need, rather than the more generalized approach group programs must take so that they can cater to as many people as possible.

Work trips

A change of scenery is good for creativity and happiness. It can break someone out of a funk and help them solve a problem that’s been bugging them for weeks. 

Work trips and conferences allow employees to fully immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the event.

It opens up new conversations, generating ideas employees never would’ve come up with otherwise. 

Volunteer days

Doing something vaguely related—or completely unrelated—to your job can be surprisingly good for deep thinking. I often get content ideas while exercising, for example, but I rarely write about actual exercise. 

You could join the ranks of businesses who give their employees time each year to work with a good cause. This could be a local school, a food bank, or something else. 

This will reflect well on you as a business, boost employee morale, and can improve skills like teamwork, leadership, and communication—all vital skills in any workplace. Paid volunteering is an opportunity to do well by doing good, and can do wonders from an employee training and development standpoint.

Conclusion 

Everyone learns in different ways. To get the most out of your team members, you want to find employee training and development strategies that equip them to retain and act on their learnings.

You can do this by simply asking them what they’d like the most. They’ll feel like their opinions and differences are valued, and something you’re willing to take into account.

Getting employee training and development right isn’t just about putting programs in place, though. You also have to make it easy for team members to get involved, and track the effectiveness of your initiatives over time. This can be tough if your employee training and development efforts are spread across a variety of platforms and systems.

Luckily, Workrowd can help. With a central hub for all your employee groups, programs, and events, team members can join in with just one click, and real-time analytics make it easy to track your impact. If you’d like to explore how our user-friendly tool suite can support your employee training and development efforts, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to accelerate learning outcomes for your team in 2023.

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Hybrid/Remote

9 strategies to combat workplace loneliness for remote workers

Ever since the pandemic pushed entire organizations into full-time remote work, workplace loneliness has been on the rise. Loneliness is an epidemic, affecting two-thirds of US adults, up from just over half in 2018. 

Loneliness is defined as a lack of social support, negative feelings about personal relationships, lacking balance (such as from working too much), and a decline in physical and mental health.

Some studies have found that loneliness can even mean we suffer from more health issues and don’t live as long.

Since we spend so much time working, it’s important that businesses address this issue. They may be unintentionally exacerbating feelings of loneliness among their employees. And it’s most definitely an issue that affects businesses, too—lonelier employees are less productive and more likely to leave.

Combatting workplace loneliness when you see people in person regularly is one thing, but what if employees work completely remotely? Is there anything you can do to make sure they don’t feel so isolated? Read on to find out.

Check-ins

Regular check-ins give employees the opportunity to talk about things that are on their minds. 

So long as the catch-ups are at a frequency the employee is comfortable with, they make them feel less alone, too. 

If the check-ins happen more often than someone is expecting, it can make them feel lonelier and less understood. It’s therefore important that you understand their needs and set up a regular schedule to support them. 

Communication and organization are key to making someone feel like you’re on their side. This helps fend off workplace loneliness.

Socializing opportunities

Whether it’s in-person get togethers or virtual chats, offering your employees opportunities to socialize with their colleagues helps them to feel like part of the team. It’s also a fun way for new team members to meet their colleagues. Building connections early on is important for countering workplace loneliness.

Employee resource groups

ERGs are a great way for employees to meet colleagues, grow their network, and expand their skill set. These things are all important for making someone feel like they’re a part of the team and working on their personal lives/skills.

Open discussions about mental health

At an old job of mine, an employee was on leave due to stress. Almost everyone from every department knew this and made fun of said employee for it. 

This is an awful way to discuss mental health. Not only for that person, but for other employees who may be going through something similar.

Talking about mental health is challenging. While society has made some progress in recent years, in some areas there’s still more stigma than support.

When leaders have open discussions about their mental health, it becomes easier for employees to open up, too. This changes the narrative in the workplace, and maybe even in employees’ personal lives, too. It can make them kinder to themselves and the people around them, all because one person set an example.

Plus, by ensuring employees don’t feel isolated by their struggles, you can reduce the risk of workplace loneliness.

Connect employees who are nearby

Sometimes you may have a handful of employees who live near each other, or someone who’s just moved to a new area and doesn’t know anyone. 

Why not give them the opportunity to meet up and work together, or just catch up over coffee? 

This can help them get to know people from their own or other teams. It will improve collaboration and idea generation, as well as make them feel more like they belong in the workplace.

Be inclusive with your approach and language

If you use language that’s ableist, racist, sexist, transphobic, or ‘others’ someone in any way, it can make those people feel isolated.

If you’re not sure what word or phrase to use, ask your employees what they prefer. You could run a poll or survey, or ask individuals you know who share that identity.

The most important thing is that you approach your language usage with an open mind, and as a growth opportunity. Language grows and changes all the time. It always has, and it always will.

Evolving language usage isn’t about preventing freedom of speech. It’s about making other people feel like they belong, too.

Make sure everyone can communicate how they’re comfortable

Some people love quick videos; others prefer an email. It’s important that everyone communicates in a way that they’re comfortable with, not in a way that’s forced on them.

For some, recording a video is akin to being on stage performing standup comedy. You don’t want to make those people feel less included, or totally uncomfortable, by forcing them to do what they feel unable to do. Guide them, set examples, but remember that everyone is different.

Just because you love videos, that doesn’t mean it should be the default for everyone. Some employees may never process information shared over audio or video as well as a written email. 

Likewise, there may be some that prefer audio or video because they can process it quicker. 

There’s no harm in accommodating different communication styles so that you can get the best out of everyone and combat workplace loneliness.

Send presents

If someone has completed a big project, or it’s their birthday, consider sending them a gift to thank them for all their hard work and show them you’re thinking of them. 

You could send them their favorite brand of chocolate, a book they’ve been wanting to read, or a gift voucher for a day out somewhere. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. What matters is that it’s a gesture to prove to them that you care about them and they’re not alone.

Give them a purpose

When we have a purpose in life, we’re happier and healthier. Why should work be any different? Someone’s purpose doesn’t have to be tied to their job, of course, but there’s no reason it can’t be, either.

To ensure people feel like they’re making a difference, think about how you explain what they’re doing and how it ties into the business’s bigger picture. Quite often, we’re not given this information. We end up feeling like we’re operating in a silo, not really making a difference to the business’s wider objectives.

All great businesses are big on teamwork and cooperation, though. So, explaining to employees what you need from them in relation to business goals and their internal motivations can give them a greater sense of purpose.

Are they motivated to help people? To grow their skills? To design new technologies? Something else? Everyone has something that drives them. You just need to find a way to tap into that to ensure they feel seen and don’t fall prey to workplace loneliness.

Conclusion 

Loneliness is an epidemic that’s damaging to our long- and short-term health. Businesses can help to improve their remote employees’ health by taking small steps to support them and making sure they feel like part of the team.

If you want to protect your employees from workplace loneliness, giving them an easy way to build connections from day one is a must. Workrowd puts all your employee groups, programs, and events, just a click away, ensuring everyone feels welcome. With real-time analytics, you can see what’s actually making a difference for team members and double down on your most effective programming.

If you’d like to learn more and see how Workrowd can help your people find their people, no matter where or when they work, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

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