Emily Tonks of Inspire Me introduces five ways of improving engagement within the contact centre team.
Many companies are still measuring only what their employees think when what really matters is what employees do. Are they showing the types of behaviours that can deliver your business outcomes, supporting your brand and building trust in your business?
By placing employee engagement at the heart of every business strategy, plan and decision, you can guarantee these behaviours will become aligned with where you want your business to be.
Here’s a few ideas to help you get started:
1. Start Small
We are all busy, however almost everyone takes a lunch break. Why not do it together? Use it as a time to do an ice breaker activity that gets the employees to start communicating with each other.
If lunch isn’t an option, form a group to do a fun activity together outside of the office. It will give them a sense of community and in return, you will be surprised how productive the office becomes.
Here at Inspire Me, we make sure that once a month the whole team will either go out for breakfast (and usually incorporate this with a meeting) or sit together, away from desks, to eat lunch.
We also run “Monday Fundays” – this is a five to fifteen minute slot given to a different team member each week to do something with. We’ve played card games, made smoothies, done treasure hunts and lots more.
This really gets the team’s creative juices flowing at the start of the week and really connects everyone together.
2. Scrap Your Old Employee Engagement Survey!
Chances are this is the same survey you’ve been sending out for years.
It’s generic, it’s dated, it doesn’t ask questions that are specific to your business and strategy and it doesn’t tell you whether employees are doing what’s needed to deliver your business outcomes.
You might have to survey your customers now and then if you don’t have face-to-face contact with them, but your own employees?
Why waste time getting them to fill out something they might not be able to relate to, when instead you could be sitting down with them, looking them in the eye and asking, “how are things going?”
3. Show Recognition and Give Rewards
For employees to be motivated to give their best, they need to know their efforts will be noticed.
Regularly thanking them for their efforts shows your awareness of their hard work and provides encouragement for them to boost their performance.
Make the time to celebrate accomplishments, rewarding and recognising employees in ways that are meaningful to them. Whilst competitive pay and good benefits are key motivating factors, providing incentives for higher performance gives employees something extra to strive for.
4. Involve Your Employees and Ask For Their Advice
Employees are at the sharp end of your business. They know what will work and what won’t. Unfortunately, it’s far from unusual to see employees becoming disconnected from their workplace when they hear thoughtless ideas from the top.
Stop wasting time! Speak to your people first hand and find out from them which ideas work and which don’t. As soon as they become a part of this process and see you taking their advice on board, you can guarantee they are going to feeling so much more valued and committed to the business.
5. Get Your People Involved With a Kick-Ass Engagement Project!
There’s a never-ending list of reasons why investing in the right type of employee engagement will improve all aspects of your business in the long run. Engaged employees are happier and are more motivated to work harder for you.
If all (or most) of your employees are engaged, think of the possibilities in terms of innovation and collaboration!
Our Sing & Inspire workplace choirs are our most popular employee engagement programmes. We support our clients to set up their very own on site workplace choir creating opportunities for their people to connect with their work, colleagues, leaders and the business as a whole.
The Sunday Times’, 2017 Best 100 Companies, list was published last week, and we are chuffed (but also, not surprised!) to see how many of the companies we’ve been working with have made it onto these lists.
We’ve been running an Inspire Choir with Admiral Insurance, number 2 on Sunday Times’, 30 Best Big Companies To Work For, list, for seven years.
Henry Engelhardt, former CEO Admiral Group Plc, said:
It’s not obvious that if you employ inspireMe and run a choir or singing group of some sort that you’re going to have better business, but believe me, it works.
You need to know if your engagement programmes are having the desired effect. Treat these measures as you would your most important business metrics. Employees know that you measure what’s important to you so show them that this is every bit as important as your financial results.
Just because you are incorporating an employee engagement activity of some kind, it doesn’t have to be disruptive to the workday.
Employee engagement is an untapped advantage that any company can have, it opens many doors to make for a happier workplace, so why not instil something new in your business today!
Author: Robyn Coppell
Published On: 25th Jul 2019
Read more about - Guest Blogs, Inspire Me
