Reflecting on last year, I am immensely proud of the team at Clicks who haven’t missed a beat to continue to deliver great service to our clients, contractors, and candidates. From our Operations and IT team to our Account Managers, Consultants, Contractor Care, and Leadership team; it has been great to see everyone pull together and demonstrate Clicks’ spirit of resilience and a growth mindset while having a few laughs along the way. As we settle into the year, I’ve got some suggestions to help boost employee engagement that will create a revived and energised workforce ready to tackle the year ahead.
1. Pre-boarding and Onboarding
Whether you realise it or not, engagement begins to build from the moment your new hire verbally accepts your offer of employment. Keeping in touch with them while they are working out their notice is a great way to both keep your new hire excited about their new role, as well as get a headstart on learning about their new company, team and job.
When we have a new starter at Clicks, in their first week, the newbie is taken to lunch by a different team each day. This way they get to know who’s who and can short-circuit the ‘getting to know you’ nerves. Feeling more relaxed and comfortable also helps people get up to speed with their work requirements more quickly, making them optimally productive in less time.
2. Recognition
Appropriately recognising staff is essential to maintaining or boosting employee engagement. What you choose to recognise may include teamwork, workplace kindness, sales performance, effort towards goals or project milestones, extra-curricular contributions, and learning from past experiences. Whatever you choose, it’s important that it is aligned to your corporate values and over-arching vision.
If you do regular staff engagement surveys, it will be extra impactful to align the form of recognition to things that you know are important to your people. It may be as simple as a personal visit or call from the business leader to say thank you, and describe the positive impact of their efforts.
3. Team Activities
I’ve talked previously about the importance of creating opportunities for shared experiences. This is because positive work cultures are more productive, and some of the best memories we have at work are when we’re connecting with others. This is certainly true for me. One of my favourites is to volunteer as a team. Volunteering increases wellbeing and happiness among other benefits. This means your team activity is already off to a good start – just ensure you pick something that resonates with the team.
A couple of years ago we put on a staff trivia night to raise funds for Seeing Eye Dogs Australia. As a surprise, we organised a SEDA worker to come and say a few words, and bring one of the puppies in training. It was a huge hit!
You could also play a game of ‘Two Truths and a Lie’. As the name suggests, team members take turns sharing three statements and guessing which two are true. This is a great team game, particularly for new teams, to get to know each other.
4. Flexible Hours
Whether it’s knocking off early on a Friday, starting later on a Monday, or having a half a day off work, time and flexibility is something many of us value. My team will put in the extra hours when required, so providing them with flexibility creates a trusting and respectful workplace relationship. Having extra time off work on the company is not only a reward and recognition initiative that employees love, it can also boost their productivity and creativity and help them return to work more engaged.
5. Free Lunch
For many, free food is the reward itself. In my experience, it also creates an opportunity for the team to break away from work and connect with each other. We recently celebrated International Cheeseburger Day – yes, it’s a thing – with a surprise burger lunch of each staff’s choosing and the feedback from the team was overwhelmingly positive.
6. Choice of Reward
Speaking of choice, I think it’s important to recognise that different people appreciate different things. That’s why I recommend providing options for team members to select from – as much as is practicable – when considering rewards and incentives. This shifts the reward from being tokenistic to something that is valued by each team member. For example, the options could be a gift voucher, a range of physical prizes, or a donation to a charity of choice. You can get creative with the options. If you are unsure, ask your team for ideas. Knowing that they are being paid fairly also improves staff engagement. Consider communicating salary benchmarking data used to inform pay decisions or staying abreast of the latest salary data to ensure your staff is appropriately compensated for their work.
Why it Matters
It’s reported that engaged employees can positively impact profit, productivity, sales, and customer ratings. Whereas disengaged employees can increase turnover and absenteeism, with a negative ripple effect on your business and the customer experience. As demand for talent increases, it is important that people are inspired to stay and motivated to perform.
For permanent, contract, or project hiring needs, please reach out your Clicks Account Manager, or call us on 1300 CLICKS to see how we can help today.
