Blog  Work Culture

7 Employee Engagement Ideas You Can Easily Try in Your Workplace

Mathew Maniyamkott  7 min read 

Having a lot of employees on your payroll, all working towards your company goals might
seem like an achievement in itself. But putting a well-oiled machinery in place to sustain an
amicable atmosphere will take you more than just doling out monthly salaries. It needs a little
more than monetary bene ts to keep employees motivated for the long haul.

Everyone needs that little push to go beyond the laid down instructions. This is why keeping
your team in high spirits is your best bet. Let us look at seven employee engagement ideas
that you could start right o the bat, this could either be starting an activity or creating a
change in how communication takes place:

1. Create an Atmosphere Where Anything Can be Said

Well, a ‘rule’ like this should come with its limitations as there might be people who would
indulge in unruly behavior. Employees could be strictly told to stay away from insulting
others, engaging in racism or such behavior that can be considered disrespectful or rude to
others.

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Having an open atmosphere where you can communicate your mind freely not only helps a lot
Got it issues without any worries. This
of employees open up, but also helps people to address
would bring out cases of harassment and favoritism out in the open faster than you could have
read the article.

A policy where everything is welcome would also bring out the best ideas in your employees.
Do not worry about people taking advantage of this policy, as long as there are clear
guidelines, there would never be any problem. In fact, it would only make your employees feel
valued and respected. If speaking out were frowned upon in the workplace, imagine the kind
of tensions your employees would be under not able to address their emotions about the work
they do. That would be a disaster.

2. Ask Employees to Learn More

Is there an Account Manager who also wants to dabble in Digital Marketing? Get them
discounts on popular marketplaces for online courses such as Skillshare.com, Code Academy,
Coursera, Lynda.com and more. Some of them are subscription-based while you have the
option to buy individual courses too. This will keep your team on toes because they know that
you would not discourage if they happen to show interest in other areas of the work.

You will get diversi ed skill sets along with passionate employees who are geared up and
equally grateful to you for the opportunity that you have presented them which most
employees would not do. As a business, you stand to gain the loyalty of such employees, you
are also additionally rewarded with employees who can assist you with di erent
perspectives; thanks to their newfound knowledge in related areas.

To make sure that the employees are accountable in this, you can set tests for them, reward
them appropriately based on their performance and also ask them to share their knowledge
with their peers. This would mean that the employees get a hands-on experience when they
teach others.

3. Be Casual and Flexible

One of the greatest gifts you can give an employee is being exible with them. As long as an
employee does his/her job, you shouldn’t be bothered too much about where and how they get
their job done. Tell the employees that they could come in early and leave early if there are
any personal commitments to keep up. Do keep in mind that an employee has a lot of other
things like family and friends apart from their day jobs, as the owner of a company you need
to respect it and behave accordingly.

This is so true on so many levels. People might even stay for an extra while because putting up
for a few months more would mean a hike or more experience while they wouldn’t usually
think twice about moving out if the immediate boss is a pain. This is why the open
communication policy we mentioned earlier is a must while being exible according to the
employees’ exigencies will hold you in good stead with them.

Drop the hierarchy. Don’t let people address each other as Mr. and Miss. Make everyone
address each other by names. Make it seem like a normal thing and everyone will catch up on
it.

4. Have Fun in the O ice

Change the perception of o ce time for everyone working for you. It is easy to feel exhausted
and even sleepy on most work days when the morale is low. There are a lot of ways for you to
include fun in the o ce. I know of a startup that makes their employees dance randomly in
the middle of a day to popular movie songs. As weird as that might sound for the uninitiated,
it becomes easy to get pulled into the vortex of energy that emanates from such an activity.

Another smart way to include fun in the workplace is to ask employees directly what they
mean by ‘fun’. Do you think they would come up with a 30-mins of UNO once a week? There is
no harm in it. People will lap up such mild bursts of deviation from the drudgery of work. Such
little ideas of fun make coming to o ce less of a burden and something to look forward to.

Play a documentary or a movie once a month during o ce hours. If countries like Norway can
make do with just 27.5 hours of work per week, then cutting down one or two hours from the
working hours shouldn’t be a dampener when you look at it in the larger scheme of things.
Even a cat video would break the monotony associated with work. These are some simple
ideas that you could implement immediately.

5. Awarding Your Employees

This might not be the brightest idea if you have just 10 employees. But if you have a lot of
people working for you, then you could have award functions where you could give out the
best prizes for people who have performed the best in their eld of work. Talk about each wins
your employees have given to you. You can add awards to small but signi cant things like
‘Most Punctual Employee’, ‘Employee with the Brightest Smile’ and so on. The small trophy
would mean a lot to the employees and they will cherish the experience of the day for a long
time.

 
If there are employees who are quitting, acknowledge their contributions too. Book a hall,
arrange for splendid food, add a bit of music and you have got a gala night to celebrate the
contributions of your employees. Be creative with the names for the awards and come up with
performances during the award ceremony to keep the employees engaged throughout the day.

6. Bring Speakers/Comedians/Artists for Extra Cheer

I cannot help but bring up this quote by John Keating (played brilliantly by Robin Williams) in
the movie ‘Dead Poets Society’ where he talks to his student. It goes like this -“We don’t read
and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the
human race. And the human race is lled with passion. And medicine, law, business,
engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty,
romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” Expose your employees to the various art
forms that exist.

A stand-up comedian should be able to lift their stories up with their own spin of day-to-day
happenings in life. Not many of us know how to enjoy a painting, bring an experienced artist
who could talk about Impressionism, Fauvism and Pop Art with ease. You never know, your
employees will get inspired by the beauty of art around them and put their heart and soul in
their work. Or even bring in a motivational speaker who could induce a lot of positivity in the
workplace by talking about the importance of working together as a team as well as how to
work properly.

7. Make Your Employees a Part of the Hiring Process

There is no better way to make your employees feel valued than making them a part of the
hiring process. It comes with a lot of bene ts other than just boosting their ego. In fact, you
can get a lot of insights by the probable hire and how their skillset (or the lack thereof) would
be best suited for the company.

After the interview process is over, you can ask the employee whether they think the
candidate was a good t and if not what are the reasons for rejecting them. They could be a big
part of the decision making process for hiring if they have been with the company for a long
time. Making them a part of the interview process is a huge morale booster for them and it is a
direct message to them saying that they are valued and their contributions are appreciated.

Conclusion
These are some of the easiest steps that you could get done even today when it comes to
engaging your employees. Employee engagement activities are a great way for a CEO to
understand his employees and vice versa. This should also double up as an opportunity for
 employees to ask questions to the boss. Transparency should be the buzz-word in your o ce
and your employees will be super-happy and motivated.

Make use of a good Employee Feedback Software; it will help you send periodic surveys to
gauge employee happiness. Don’t stop with just collecting feedback. Take corrective actions
wherever needed, so you can show that you genuinely care for your employees.

Remind the employees that you care about them with your ‘Employment Engagement
Activities’, it will automatically improve their productivity and bring in a lot of goodwill.
Assign people speci cally to work on these employee engagement activities so that the best
possible methods are brought out in the forefront.

Mathew Maniyamkott
Guest Blogger at SurveySparrow

Regular contributor to various magazines. Passionate about entrepreneurship, startups, marketing, and
productivity.

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