5 Fun Ways to Engage Your Employees During the Year

As the summer season comes to its conclusion, employees are marching back to work, hopefully happy and content. Or at least some of them are. For other employees, returning from vacation means back to the grind. It doesn’t have to be that way. An engaged and energized team should be a priority for all firms, no matter what industry.

The following are five ways to inject a little fun and added productivity when employees return from a fun-filled summer break!

1) Provide Productivity Incentives  

Fun and work can live and breathe in the same office. Firms that offer productivity incentives during the year, such as team breakfasts or prizes, give an engagement boost to employees’ working day.

Productivity incentives such as having a team breakfast bring work mates closer together. Many employees work in separate areas of the office so don’t get a chance to interact as much. By introducing a team breakfast, not only do you boost engagement but you also strengthen a team ethos. Providing incentives and physical rewards is a proven way to engage employees even more than cash rewards. Most employees use cash to pay bills or to supplement their savings. Rewarding employees with a gift certificate for a restaurant or training course have an element of surprise- and the winner is..?

2) Innovate a Bucket List Bulletin Board

Creating a Bucket List Bulletin Board doesn’t take much effort. It is Simple. Just hang up a whiteboard in a central location in the office and write Bucket List in big black letters. Ask employees to write an item on their bucket list, such as skydiving or climbing Kilimanjaro then others to guess who wrote it. Another great idea that is easy to set up is writing a question at the top of the board and encouraging members of your team to write down their answer.

3) Establish an Own It Day

In most organizations, the leadership is in the driving seat when making decisions to launch new products. As a result, great ideas from other sections of the office may get ignored. Limeade, a wellness tech firm, values ownership. They decided to launch a special event called Own it Day that offered the opportunity for all their employees– no matter where they sat on the organizational ladder- to come up with ideas for product improvements. Limeade, have found that this engages their employees and brings their culture to life.

4) Promote Health and Wellbeing

Firms that promote a healthy lifestyle effectively retain and attract new employees. Some firms offer discounted gym membership or provide healthier food options, for example exchanging the coffee jar with a full bowl of fresh fruit. A great initiative worth trying is Walk and Talk meetings, providing a break from drab office scenery. They are also a great way to get circulation pumping by encouraging employees to leave their desks.

Marrisa Levin, writing for Inc.com, notes that there are several factors why firms should consider implementing these type of meetings into their working culture.

Employee Health: Walk and Talk meetings are a superb way of introducing physical exercise within employees’ workdays. They also maximize productivity and decrease the number of sick days.

Getting a Healthy Dose of Inspiration: Changing scenery opens up new neuro-pathways in the brain, stimulating new ideas and solutions to problems.

A Flatter Organization: Levin cites Technology executive Nilofer Merchant, who shares in her TED Talk, that Walk and Talk meeting helps shed hierarchal barriers. They are also a great way of bringing everyone together and effectively breaking down cultural misperceptions.

5) Conduct Friday Regroup Sessions. Why Friday? 

Fridays are where people are busy planning their weekend plans in their head, rather than thinking about the coming week. The folks at Incentive use their Fridays as productively as possible by gathering everyone together within an informal meeting atmosphere. Each week they discuss their challenges and successes and set goals for the next week at work. They also conduct ‘Friday Chat’ where each team member takes turns presenting company news to their global offices.

What to Take Away

Providing an engaging work environment where people look forward to getting in the office is a win-win for everyone. Employees are happier and energized which means a highly productive and motivated team. For business owners, this equates to running a thriving company that retains staff and entices others to come on board. There is not one avenue to increase engagement for your firm, but countless. Introducing performance incentives, meet and walks, and giving staff a platform to demonstrate their creativity will only add to the continued success of a business.

By: Jonathan Gordon