What does employee engagement mean to your company? Part 6

 

In my latest blog series, we have been discussing employee engagement – what it isn’t, what tools to use, and how to sustain a culture rich with employee empowerment.  Today, in Part 6, we are going to discuss how companies can maintain a high level of employee engagement in the virtual world that most of us are bridging, just by using one simple tool.  Some of my clients are just not able to have employees work from home, but may have customers or suppliers who they are communicating with virtually.  Some companies have gone 100% virtual, and, in fact, have shuttered their doors and everyone is working from home.  Most companies that I work with have implemented a model that incorporates both of these.  In any case, knowing how to communicate effectively, engage your employees, and continue to prioritize employee engagement, in this world where the team may be scattered is challenging, to say the least.

The biggest tip that I can share with companies is to do a “check in” with each employee – not a team Zoom call.  In fact, this topic was the source of a long discussion with some colleagues of mine last week.  I know of a manager who has scheduled 8 am Zoom calls each day with the team.  His intentions may be good, but it has eroded the trust of his team.  Their belief is that he is checking up on them.  He has asked that each person dress as if they were in the office, and all cameras must be turned on each day.  Now, there may be some studies that show that getting up, getting a shower, doing hair and make up (or run a comb through your hair for our male colleagues), and putting on dress-up clothes makes us behave more professionally and, ultimately, be more productive.  But when your boss is telling you that it is required, and he wants the cameras on during the calls to prove it, that sets an untrusting and belittling tone that is difficult to overcome.  It is also extremely insensitive to our colleagues who may have their children doing on-line school in their office behind them, or who may not be having a great day and don’t want a close-up camera shot, or who just want to work from home in their PJs that day.  Do any of those things really make us more unproductive than those who look like they stepped off of the cover of Business Weekly?

A check-in, on the other hand, is a one-on-one call with each of your employees, just to ask how they are doing, how they are coping, and maybe just to share a laugh.  These types of conversations go a long way to building trust with your team and to support them.  This is not meant to take the place of the team Zoom call (although those can structured differently, as opposed to the manager I mentioned previously), but to supplement them.  Yes, business needs to be discussed, projects need to be completed, and deadlines need to be met.  But once you start checking in with your team, separate from those business updates, you engage them in a different way.  Depending on the culture of your workplace, there are many ways to make these check-ins casual, personal, and effective.  Perhaps you ask each employee to bring their pet to their lap during the check-in, and you have Swazzles on your lap too.  Or ask them to share their favourite vacation picture from days-gone-by on their cameras.  Or talk about what each of you misses most from a year and a half ago.  Or suggest that each of you wear shorts and a t-shirt for the call.  Or ask them to take the call in a different room, or better yet, outside once the weather gets better.  Find something that is personal about them, something that they have an interest in, or something that brings a smile to their face, and ask them about it.  Keep your conversation limited to asking how they are – that’s it.  It can take as little as 5 minutes, but the impact will be huge, especially when it is done regularly.

 

By acknowledging that working virtually is different, and, in fact, difficult for some of our team, it increases the trusting relationships that we have with our team, which does, as we know, improve employee engagement and drive bottom line results IN SPITE of not being in the office every day.  Your employees will appreciate your nod to being okay with that, and they will end up being more engaged with you and the rest of the team.  Employee engagement is all about appealing to what matters to each individual and motivating them through those things.  In the world of virtual work, keeping that connection is more challenging to do, yet has a huge payoff. 

Thanks for joining me today to read this blog.  Please reply to the blog if you would like to share your own experiences.  You can read the other blog posts in this series on www.kimwolfconsulting.com.  Next week we will finish this series on Employee Engagement by talking about how to sustain a culture in your workplace where employee engagement continues to be a priority.